UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

)R .    I.'ALBC 


INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 


Books  by  Allan  L.  Benson 

THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  SOCIALISM 
OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION 
THE  USURPED  POWER  OF  THE  COURTS 
A  WAY  TO  PREVENT  WAR 
INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 


(See  descriptions  at  the  back  of  this  book) 


INVITING  WAR 
TO  AMERICA 

BY 

ALLAN  L.  BENSON 


NEW    YORK 

B.  W.    HUEBSCH 

1916 


COPYRIGHT,  1915-16,  BY 
THE  PEARSON  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1916,  BY 
ALLAN  L.  BENSON 


UAO.3 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.     SCARING  A  PEOPLE  INTO  CAMP    ....  7 

II.    WHEN  is  A  NATION  "PREPARED"?    ...  23 

III.  OUR  REAL  NAVAL  STRENGTH 44 

IV.  THE  POLITICS  OF  "PREPAREDNESS"   ...  69 
V.    A  CLOSE  VIEW  OF  THE  WAR-ALARMISTS    .  85 

VI.    QUESTIONS  FOR  THE  PRESIDENT    ....  108 

VII.    BEWARE  OF  THE  WAR  "MOVIE"    ....  126 

VIII.    MR.  ROOSEVELT — AND  WASHINGTON  !.    .     .  131 

IX.    POLICIES  THAT  MAKE  FOR  WAR    ....  142 

X.    "CONSPIRATORS  AND  LIARS" 152 

XL    THINGS  WORTH  FIGHTING  FOR    ....  158 
XII.    WHAT  DOES  AMERICA  LACK  TO  MAKE  IT 

HAPPY? 162 

XIII.  FACTS  FOR  FARMERS 170 

XIV.  DEAR  LAND  AND  POOR  PEOPLE 179 

XV.    OPPORTUNITY  .  186 


280258 


INVITING  WAR  TO 
I      AMERICA 

CHAPTER  I 

SCARING  A    PEOPLE  INTO    CAMP 

T  N  this  country,  at  this  moment,  is  being  made  what 
•*•  is  perhaps  the  greatest  attempt  of  its  kind  in  all 
history  to  stampede  a  nation  into  committing  an  act 
of  monumental  folly.  For  many  years,  the  interests 
that  believed  they  could  derive  profit,  in  one  way 
or  another,  from  making  this  a  great  military  power 
have  been  trying  to  make  it  a  great  military  power. 
So  long  as  we  retained  our  sanity,  they  had  but  mod- 
erate success. 

We  are  now  about  to  learn  whether  greed,  mas- 
querading as  patriotism  and  operating  upon  our  fears, 
can  accomplish  what  thus  far  we  have  prevented  greed 
from  doing.  The  war  in  Europe  has  been  seized  by 
our  militarists  as  the -club  with  which  to  drive  us 
into  camp.  We  were  more  or  less  deaf  when,  in 
times  of  profound  world-peace,  they  talked  to  us 
of  love  of  country  and  tried  to  get  us  to  arm.  Hav- 
ing talked  love  and  failed,  they  are  now  talking  fear. 
We  are  invited  to  behold  Belgium,  as  we  are  also 
admonished  to  beware  her  sad  fate,  and  the  militar- 
ists who  once  demanded  only  a  great  navy,  now  de- 

7 


8  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

mand  a  great  army,  as  well.  The  greatest  publicity- 
machine  that  was  ever  set  in  motion  is  now  running 
at  top-speed  to  spread  fear  to  the  smallest  and  most 
remote  hamlet  in  our  land. 

Our  national  history  contains  the  record  of  no 
crisis  so  grave  as  this.  Not  even  the  secession  of  the 
Southern  States  was  so  freighted  with  horrible  pos- 
sibilities. What  we  are  facing  is  the  danger  of  mili- 
tarism. 

Opponents  of  "preparedness"  cannot  be  convicted 
of  lack  of  patriotism.  The  most  of  which  they  might 
be  convicted  is  lack  of  sense.  But  the  advocates  of 
militarism  are  not  so  fortunately  circumstanced.  The 
militarists,  unlike  their  opponents,  are  not  disinter- 
ested. The  peace  advocates  have  nothing  to  gain  by 
not  building  a  greater  navy  and  summoning  a  vast 
army,  while  the  militarists  have  much  to  gain  if  they 
can  put  through  their  program.  However  much  they 
may  protest  their  patriotism,  the  militarists  cannot 
escape  the  fact  that  some  of  them  would  derive  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  profits  from  a  plunge  into  "pre- 
paredness," while  the  capitalist  class  as  a  whole  craves 
great  military  establishments  with  which  to  force 
its  way  more  deeply  into  the  markets  of  the  world. 
The  great  personal  profits  at  stake  properly  place  some 
of  the  militarists  under  suspicion.  If  their  motives 
are  pure,  examination  cannot  make  them  rotten.  If 
their  motives  are  rotten,  examination  may  save  the 
country  from  disaster. 

Consider  the  significant  fact  that  while  the  mili- 
tarists declare  defense  to  be  their  only  purpose  in 
urging  "preparedness,"  their  pretensions  are  belied  by 
the  kind  of  weapons  they  advocate.  Their  preten- 
sions are  also  belied  by  the  weapons  they  do  not  ad- 


SCARING  A  PEOPLE  INTO  CAMP         9 

vocate.  It  is  more  than  passing  strange  that  men 
who  talk  so  much  about  defense  are  so  little  inter- 
ested in  purely  defensive  measures  and  eagerly  alert 
only  when  the  instruments  of  offensive  warfare  are 
considered. 

A  case  in  point  is  that  of  Mr.  Edison.  The  in- 
ventive genius  of  Mr.  Edison  no  man  will  deny.  The 
militarists  are  not  only  willing  but  eager  to  utilize 
it.  Mr.  Edison  is,  indeed,  the  chairman  of  the  board 
of  scientists  and  inventors  who  have  been  summoned 
to  strengthen  our  military  machinery.  But  Mr.  Edi- 
son is  more  than  an  inventor — he  is  a  man  and  an 
American.  As  an  American  he  has  both  interest  in 
our  country's  welfare  and  ideas  as  to  what  should 
be  the  nature  of  its  equipment  for  defense.  He  has 
expressed  these  ideas  repeatedly  and  at  length.  He 
expressed  them  early  in  the  summer  of  1915  in  an 
extended  interview  in  the  New  York  World.  That 
they  were  not  hasty  conclusions,  as  hastily  abandoned, 
is  proved  by  the  fact  that  he  repeated  them  frequently 
during  the  summer  and  again  in  October  to  Chicago 
reporters  while  he  was  en  route  to  the  Panama-Pacific 
Exposition.  When  asked  to  "give  his  idea"  of  what 
America  should  do  toward  preparedness,  a  Chicago 
despatch  to  the  New  York  Times  quoted  him  as  fol- 
lows: 

"Well,"  he  replied  reflectively,  "my  idea  of  that 
may  not  be  just  the  same  as  the  idea  of  many  people. 
Let  me  see.  Consider  the  great  amount  of  powder 
being  shot  off  on  the  European  battle  front  every  day. 
I  would  build  great  factories  in  which  twice  as  much 
powder  as  that  could  be  manufactured.  I  would  locate 
and  have  stored  away  enough  material  to  make  up 
the  powder.  Then  I  would  not  make  it.  I  would 


io          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

have  everything  ready,  so  that  within  forty-eight 
hours  I  could  go  ahead  turning  it  out. 

"Then  as  to  shells :  I  think  it  is  a  wasteful  thing 
to  make  shells  on  lathes,  as  they  make  them  now. 
We  should  get  up  shell  machines  for  making  them 
rapidly  and  in  enormous  quantities.  Then  I  would 
grease  the  machines  up  and  store  them  away  with  a 
great  quantity  of  steel  billets,  ready  to  be  worked  up 
on  short  notice.  In  fact,  I  would  make  my  prepara- 
tion potential,  and  I  would  do  it  right  away.  The 
proposition  should  not  be  a  military  one  at  all.  I 
don't  like  this  military  idea  at  all.  It  should  be  done 
solely  on  an  economical  basis — a  business  basis. 

"Building  these  powder  factories  and  these  ma- 
chines and  ammunition  factories  wouldn't  cost  much. 
But  I  would  keep  this  in  mind  in  preparing  to  make 
stores  and  ammunition.  I  would  prepare  to  turn  out 
right  along  twice  as  much  as  is  being  used  now  on  the 
whole  European  battlefield — then  not  make  it. 

"Now  as  to  actual  fighting.  I  would  rather  use 
machines  than  men.  A  man  is  only  a  man,  after  all.  A 
machine  can  be  easily  as  good  as  twenty  men.  Then 
one  man,  using  it,  is  as  good  as  twenty  men.  He 
should  be  at  least  that  good  if  he  is  an  American. 

"America  is  the  greatest  machine  country  in  the 
world,  and  its  people  are  the  greatest  machinists.  They 
can,  moreover,  invent  machinery  faster  and  have  it 
more  efficient  than  any  other  two  countries.  It  is  a 
machine  nation;  its  battle  preparation  should  be  with 
machinery. 

"I  am  down  on  military  establishments.  A  stand- 
ing army  is  not  worth  anything  unless  it  is  on  a  war 
footing,  which  is  absurd.  We  do  need  an  enormous 
number  of  trained  officers  and  drill  sergeants,  how- 


SCARING  A  PEOPLE  INTO  CAMP       11 

ever.  These  should  be  trained  right  along,  even  more 
than  apparently  would  be  needed,  then  turned  back 
into  industry. 

"They  should  be  kept  in  touch  at  stated  intervals 
with  the  latest  things  in  warfare,  so  that  they  would 
be  ready  as  soon  as  telegraph  and  railroad  could  sum- 
mon them  to  go  into  active  service.  We  can  gamble 
on  a  volunteer  army  because  the  American  is  the 
quickest-minded  human  being  in  things  mechanical. 
He  could  learn  the  use  of  machinery  of  war  with 
sufficient  despatch." 

Mr.  Edison,  in  his  Chicago  interview,  did  not  dis- 
cuss the  navy,  but  in  earlier  interviews  he  had  advo- 
cated the  education  of  a  greater  number  of  officers 
who  should  spend  a  certain  number  of  weeks  each 
year  in  practice  aboard  ship,  and  then  return  to  indus- 
trial pursuits,  where  their  scientific  education  should 
be  of  great  value.  Except  during  such  drills,  our 
warships,  he  said,  should  be  tied  up  at  docks,  with 
nobody  aboard  except  watchmen.  In  the  hour  of 
need  officers  and  crew,  at  the  tick  of  a  telegraph 
instrument,  should  hasten  to  their  ships. 

Mr.  Edison's  ideas  are  obviously  purely  defensive. 
What  reception  did  they  receive  from  the  administra- 
tion at  Washington  or  from  the  ammunition  and  gun 
manufacturers  who  assert  that  they  wish  only  to 
defend  the  country?  Mr.  Edison's  ideas  were  utterly 
ignored.  Though  Mr.  Edison  is  the  head  of  the 
government's  great  defensive  board  of  scientists  and 
inventors,  his  personal  ideas  of  what  should  consti- 
tute our  defenses  were  given  no  more  consideration 
than  as  if  they  had  come  in  a  letter  from  an  un- 
known man.  Mr.  Edison  denounced  a  standing  army, 
yet  the  same  newspapers  that  contained  his  Chicago 


12          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

interview  also  contained  the  announcement  from 
Washington  that  Secretary  Garrison  had  formulated 
a  plan  to  increase  the  army  to  540,000  men,  exclusive 
of  the  National  Guard  of  the  various  states. 

Why  is  Mr.  Edison,  in  matters  of  defense,  so  wise 
one  moment  and  so  unwise  at  others?  Why  do  the 
munitions  patriots  regard  him  as  wise  when  he  is 
inventing  things  that  might  be  used  in  offensive  war- 
fare and  foolish  when  he  is  discussing  defensive  meas- 
ures that  could  not  be  used  for  offense? 

If  it  be  assumed  that  the  munitions  patriots  are 
frauds  and  that  they  and  the  other  capitalists  of  this 
country  are  trying  to  frighten  us  into  filling  their 
pockets  with  money,  the  reasons  for  the  treatment  of 
Mr.  Edison's  suggestions  for  defense  become  plain. 

If  the  munition  patriots  are  frauds,  they  would 
naturally  oppose  Mr.  Edison's  plan  to  prepare  to 
make  twice  as  much  ammunition  as  is  being  used  in 
Europe — "and  then  not  make  it."  If  such  great  fac- 
tories were  to  be  built,  raw  materials  assembled,  then 
the  machinery  greased  so  it  would  not  rust  and  the 
doors  locked,  obviously  the  government  would  have 
to  build  the  factories  and  manufacture  its  own  mu- 
nitions of  war,  since  private  individuals  would  not 
care  to  build  plants  and  lock  them  up,  perhaps  for 
twenty  years  or  more.  If  the  munitions  patriots  are 
mere  grafters  in  search  of  loot  from  the  public  treas- 
ury, they  would  naturally  withhold  approval  from  any 
plan  that,  if  in  effect,  would  cut  off  their  loot.  But 
if  the  munitions  patriots  are  really  patriots,  and  if 
they  really  believe  the  country  is  in  danger  of  attack, 
why  should  they  withhold  approval  from  a  plan  that, 
if  in  effect,  would  give  at  the  time  of  need  the  maxi- 
mum amount  of  ammunition  at  the  minimum  cost? 


SCARING  A  PEOPLE  INTO  CAMP       13 

It  is  such  facts  as  these  that  the  American  people 
must  not  alone  consider  but  correctly  appraise  if  they 
are  to  avert  national  disaster  by  giving  the  right  an- 
swer to  the  question  as  to  whether  we  shall  proceed 
to  become  a  heavily  armed  nation.  If  we  were  in 
danger  and  only  more  defenses  could  save  us,  we 
should  have  more  defenses.  If  we  are  in  danger, 
why  is  it  that  the  men  who  are  shrieking  so  loudly 
of  our  peril  are  so  languidly  interested  in  purely  de- 
fensive measures  that  are  also  without  graft  for  pri- 
vate individuals? 

Either  the  danger  is  less  than  they  say  it  is,  or  their 
desire  for  personal  profit  is  so  great  that  it  over- 
shadows their  patriotism. 

One  or  the  other  of  these  possibilities  is  a  fact. 
No  submarine  was  ever  more  tightly  caught  in  a 
steel  net  than  these  gentlemen  are  caught  in  this 
reasoning.  They  cannot  have  their  patriotism  and 
eat  it  too.  If  they  love  their  country,  they  will  not 
try  to  pick  its  bones.  If  they  believe  it  is  in  danger 
they  will  not  stand  in  the  way  of  its  defense  at  the 
least  possible  cost.  If  they  are  mere  grafters  who, 
for  their  private  profit,  are  trying  to  frighten  the 
people  into  consenting  to  militarism,  they  will  prob- 
ably continue  to  do  as  they  have  long  done  and  are 
doing. 

Having  in  mind  the  success  of  the  Germans,  for 
more  than  a  year,  in  standing  off  the  entire  British 
navy  with  mines  and  submarines  scattered  along  the 
German  coast,  I  once  ventured  to  suggest  the  advis- 
ability of  protecting  our  own  coasts  with  such  instru- 
ments, instead  of  with  dreadnoughts.  The  idea 
seemed  to  me  to  be  worthy  of  consideration,  not  alone 
because  German  mines  have  proved  so  successful,  but 


14          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

for  the  further  reason  that  mines  planted  in  home 
waters  and  exploded  from  shore  by  electric  current, 
are  not  a  menace  to  any  nation  that  remains  at  home, 
nor  would  the  laying  of  mines  by  one  nation  cause 
any  other  nation,  in  self-defense,  to  increase  either 
its  fleet  or  the  extent  of  its  mine-fields.  Mr.  Finly 
H.  Gray,  a  member  of  the  House  Committee  on  Naval 
Affairs,  after  reading  the  article,  kindly  sent  me  a 
transcript  of  certain  official  testimony  in  which  Ad- 
mirals Fiske  and  Fletcher,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Gray's 
questions,  had  admitted  that  with  mines,  submarines 
and  land  guns,  the  Panama  Canal,  with  no  American 
ship  present,  could  be  held  against  the  largest  naval 
force  that  could  be  sent  against  it.  After  the  publi- 
cation of  these  facts,  one  of  the  Washington  newspa- 
per correspondents  went  to  the  Navy  Department  to 
ask  why  mines,  supplemented  by  submarines,  were  not 
better  defensive  weapons  than  dreadnoughts.  Secre- 
tary Daniels  was  not  at  the  department  when  the  cor- 
respondent called,  so  the  question  was  put  to  Assist- 
ant Secretary  Franklin  D.  Roosevelt.  I  quote  from 
the  report  of  the  correspondent : 

"Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy  Roosevelt  said 
that  the  defense  of  the  entire  coast  of  the  United 
States  by  means  of  mines  would  be  impracticable. 
When  his  attention  was  called  to  the  testimony  of 
Admirals  Fletcher  and  Fiske  with  regard  to  the  Pan- 
ama Canal,  Mr.  Roosevelt  said  that  while  a  harbor 
could  be  completely  protected  by  mines  and  coast  de- 
fense guns,  it  would  not  be  possible  to  defend  a  long 
coast  line  in  that  way.  He  said  that  in  the  event  of 
war,  an  enemy  desiring  to  capture  or  destroy  the 
canal  would  naturally  make  a  landing  at  sx>me  part 
cjf  the  coast  not  belonging  to  the  United  States,  say 


SCARING  A  PEOPLE  INTO  CAMP       15 

Costa  Rica  or  Panama,  and  would  march  thence  to 
the  canal. 

"In  regard  to  mining  the  Atlantic  coast,  Mr.  Roose- 
velt said  that  to  be  effective,  mines  must  be  laid  fifty 
feet  apart.  One  could  easily  make  a  calculation,  he 
said,  as  to  the  number  of  mines  that  would  be  required 
to  lay  only  one  line  along  the  Atlantic  coast.  In 
practise,  several  lines  would  have  to  be  laid,  and  Mr. 
Roosevelt  said  the  work  would  take  years.  Ocean 
currents,  winds  and  other  natural  conditions,  he  said, 
would  make  it  very  difficult  to  keep  mines  at  certain 
places  on  the  coast." 

Mr.  Roosevelt's  interview  is  reproduced  here  to 
show  how  the  desire  of  the  militarists  for  weapons 
with  which  offensive  warfare  can  be  waged  is  power- 
fully reen forced  by  the  conservatism  of  the  men  who 
stand  high  in  our  navy.  These  charges  lie,  for  the 
most  part,  against  the  professional  men  in  the  navy, 
one  of  whom  I  shall  soon  use  as  an  illustration,  but 
for  the  present  let  us  consider  Mr.  Roosevelt,  who 
speaks  with  all  the  stolid  obstinacy  of  a  sea-dog, 
though  he  is  but  33  years  old,  was  educated  to  be  a 
lawyer,  and  a  few  years  ago  was  nothing  but  rather 
a  useless  member  of  the  New  York  legislature.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  is  a  member  of  the  Army  and  Navy  and  the 
Metropolitan  clubs  in  Washington,  one  of  which,  as 
its  name  indicates,  is  a  professional  fighting  men's 
club,  where  only  orthodox  ideas  with  regard  to  mili- 
tary measures  and  weapons  are  ever  heard,  and  the 
other  is  an  ultra-exclusive  social  club  which,  in  large 
part,  is  composed  of,  or  at  any  rate  seasoned  with,  high 
military  personages  from  both  the  army  and  the  navy. 
So,  plainly,  all  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  knows  about  naval 
defense  matters,  if  he  knows  anything,  he  has  picked 


16          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

up  around  Washington  during  the  last  year  or  two, 
from  men  whom  he  is  now  parroting.  He  is  of 
momentary  importance  only  because  he  is  functioning 
as  a  parrot. 

Let  us  first  consider  Mr.  Roosevelt's  statement  that 
mines,  in  order  to  be  effective,  "must  be  laid  fifty 
feet  apart,"  that  "one  could  easily  make  a  calculation 
as  to  the  number  of  mines  that  would  be  required  to 
lay  only  one  line  along  the  Atlantic  Coast"  and  that 
"in  practise,"  several  lines  would  be  required. 

The  cost  of  a  mine  containing  approximately  500 
pounds  of  gun-cotton — enough  to  blow  up  the  largest 
warship  that  ever  was  made — is  $200. 

If  such  mines  were  to  be  laid  fifty  feet  apart,  106 
mines  would  be  required  to  lay  a  single  line  a  mile 
long.  If  three  rows  were  laid,  side  by  side,  the 
mines  being  so  placed  as  to  leave  a  minimum  opening 
between  any  two  of  approximately  eight  feet,  the 
number  of  mines  required  to  the  mile  would  be 
318. 

To  put  three  rows  of  mines  along  2,000  miles  of 
coast  would  require  636,000  mines  which,  at  $200 
each,  would  cost  $127,200,000. 

If  the  cost  of  anchoring  each  mine  ten  feet  below 
the  keel  of  the  deepest-draught  vessel  were  equal  to 
the  cost  of  the  mine  itself  (and  that  seems  a  generous 
figure),  the  cost  of  laying  the  mines  would  be  $127,- 
200,000  more. 

The  total  cost  of  putting  three  rows  of  mines  along 
2,000  miles  of  coast  would  therefore  be  $254,400,000. 

The  administration,  it  is  announced,  will  this  year 
ask  for  a  naval  appropriation  of  $246,000,000,  and 
during  the  next  five  years  it  is  planned  to  expend  for 
new  fighting  craft  $500,000,000  in  addition  to  the  cost 


SCARING  A  PEOPLE  INTO  CAMP       17 

of  maintenance  of  the  present  fleet,  which  will  amount 
to  $700,000,000  more. 

For  this  enormous  sum — one  billion,  two  hundred 
millions — we  shall  have  paid  the  regular  running  ex- 
penses of  our  fleet  and  added  to  it  ten  dreadnoughts 
at  $18,000,000  each,  with  an  appropriate  number  of 
supplementary  craft. 

The  same  amount  of  money  would  put  six  rows  of 
mines  along  4,000  miles  of  coast.  The  navy  we  shall 
have  five  years  hence,  if  the  present  program  be 
carried  out,  will  still  be  smaller  than  the  British  navy 
and,  if  Germany  should  take  a  building  spurt,  might 
be  little  or  no  larger  than  the  German  navy.  With 
which  kind  of  defense  should  we  feel  most  nearly 
safe — a  navy  that  would  be  smaller  than  Britain's 
and  not  much  if  any  larger  than  Germany's,  or  with 
six  rows  of  mines  along  4,000  miles  of  coast? 

If  we  build  the  dreadnoughts,  there  will  be  pre- 
cisely as  much  reason,  five  years  hence,  for  building 
ten  more  as  there  is  now  reason  for  building  ten.  If 
we  lay  six  rows  of  mines,  they  will  still  be  there  in 
five  years  and  we  shall  not  be  compelled  to  lay  six 
additional  rows  merely  because  Germany  may  have 
added  six  rows  to  the  mine  fields  along  her  coast,  or 
because  Great  Britain  may  have  built  a  score  of  dread- 
noughts. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  said  the  work  of  laying  mines  "would 
take  years>"  Indeed !  The  work  of  achieving  national 
safety  by  building  dreadnoughts  takes  no  time.  It  is 
mere  child's  play.  We  have  been  at  it  fifteen  years, 
during  which  time  our  navy  has  cost  us  sixteen  hun- 
dred million  dollars,  with  the  result  that  according 
to  the  war-alarmists,  we  are  as  far  away  as  ever  from 
bur  goal  of  safety. 


i8          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

Mr.  Roosevelt  also  calls  attention  to  ocean  currents, 
winds,  "and  other  natural  conditions"  which  would 
make  mines  "impracticable."  Of  course,  there  are 
no  difficulties  about  the  dreadnought  plan.  Mines  do 
not  sink  them,  nor  does  the  constant  progress  of 
invention  make  them  out  of  date  almost  before  the 
paint  on  them  is  dry.  The  dreadnought  policy,  we 
may  gather  from  Mr.  Roosevelt's  remarks,  presents 
no  great  obstacles,  but  "ocean  currents,  winds  and 
other  natural  conditions"  would  raise  the  dickens  with 
mines.  Mr.  Roosevelt  talks  like  a  great  lawyer. 

Yet  Mr.  Roosevelt,  a  few  days  after  this  interview, 
expressed  himself  in  quite  a  different  vein.  On  Octo- 
ber 5,  1915,  in  an  article  that  he  wrote  for  a  syndicate 
of  Western  newspapers,  he  said: 

"Strictly  speaking,  if  national  defense  applies  solely 
to  the  prevention  of  an  armed  landing  on  our  Atlantic 
or  Pacific  coasts,  no  navy  at  all  is  necessary." 

And  then  Mr.  Roosevelt  added : 

"But  if  defense  means  also  the  protection  of  the  vast 
interests  of  the  United  States  as  a  world  nation,  its 
commerce,  its  increasing  population  and  resources  in 
Alaska  and  other  territory  cut  off  from  the  United 
States  except  by  sea,  its  'mankind  benefiting*  enter- 
prises like  the  Panama  Canal,  then  and  then  only 
does  a  navy  become  necessary.  And  if  a  navy  is  neces- 
sary the  success  of  that  navy  against  any  other  naval 
power  demands  that  it  be  able  to  receive  and  repel 
an  attack  in  force  anywhere  on  the  high  seas  within 
that  sphere  in  which  American  interests  lie." 

There  are  the  cards  on  the  table.  To  get  a  big 
navy,  these  gentlemen  try  to  frighten  you  with  the 
specter  of  invasion,  but  what  they  really  want  is  a  big 
navy  with  which  to  safeguard  their  present  and  pros- 


SCARING  A  PEOPLE  INTO  CAMP       19 

pective  foreign  investments  and  force  into  foreign 
markets  American  goods  that  are  needed  at  home  and 
could  be  consumed  at  home  if  our  workingmen  were 
paid  enough  wages  to  enable  them  to  buy  the  things 
they  have  made. 

What  Mr.  Roosevelt  says  about  the  Panama  Canal 
is  true.  If  it  were  protected  only  by  mines,  subma- 
rines and  land  guns,  it  would  still  be  open  to  attack 
through  adjoining  countries.  But  that  is  not  the  whole 
story  about  the  Panama  Canal.  That  great  waterway, 
as  every  well-informed  person  knows,  was  built,  not 
for  peace  but  for  war.  It  was  not  built  to  carry  our 
merchant  marine,  because  we  have  none  to  speak  of, 
but  to  enable  our  navy  to  make  a  quick  shift,  in  an 
emergency,  from  one  ocean  to  the  other.  Therefore, 
if  the  Panama  Canal,  which  was  built  for  war,  is  a 
handicap  rather  than  a  help,  it  might  be  better  for  us 
to  neutralize  it  and  throw  it  open  to  the  world,  under 
the  world's  guarantee  of  equal  treatment  to  all,  than  to 
try  to  hold  it  at  the  cost  of  a  mighty  fleet  of  dread- 
noughts when,  without  the  canal,  we  might  much  bet- 
ter defend  ourselves  with  mines. 

The  American  people  should  not  forget  that,  in  the 
beginning,  it  was  intended  to  neutralize  the  canal  and 
place  no  fortification  near  it.  The  fortifications,  if 
not  an  afterthought,  appeared  to  be.  Perhaps  we  might 
better  go  back  to  the  original  plan.  If  the  world 
should  guarantee  the  use  pf  the  canal  to  all  on  equal 
terms,  the  guarantee,  of  course,  could  not  be  depended 
upon.  In  the  event  of  war,  any  nation  that  had 
the  incentive  and  the  power  would  break  its  pledge 
and  close  the  canal  to  its  enemy.  We  should  be  just 
as  likely  to  break  the  pledge  as  would  any  other  na- 
tion, and  seek  to  justify  it  pn  the  ground  of  neces- 


20          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

sity.  But  most  of  the  time  the  canal,  if  neutralized, 
would  be  open  to  the  world  on  equal  terms,  precisely 
as  it  is  to-day.  If  our  control  of  the  Panama  Canal 
compels  us  to  build  dreadnoughts  when  mines  would 
serve  us  better,  there  is  an  exceedingly  easy  way  to 
get  rid  of  the  Panama  Canal.  Neutralize  it. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  may  be  presumed  to  know,  as  every 
man  of  sense  knows,  that  competitive  construction  of 
armaments  leads  nowhere  but  to  the  poorhouse  and 
the  grave.  Nothing  is  ever  settled  because  the  more 
rapidly  one  nation  builds,  the  more  rapidly  its  potential 
enemies  build.  Representative  Finly  H.  Gray  of  In- 
diana performed  a  valuable  public  service  when  at  a 
meeting  of  the  House  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs,  he 
smoked  Admiral  Vreeland  out  on  this  point.  I  quote 
from  the  testimony : 

"MR.  GRAY.  I  wish  to  inquire  of  the  admiral  if  it 
is  not  the  policy  of  other  governments  to  increase  their 
navies  with  all  the  other  leading  powers  ? 

"ADMIRAL  VREELAND.    It  is,  sir. 

"MR.  GRAY.  What  would  be  the  advantage  to  us 
or  any  other  powers  if  the  navies  were  increased 
equally  by  all  the  nations  of  the  world  ?  Would  there 
be  any  advantage  to  us  or  to  any  other  power  ? 

"ADMIRAL  VREELAND.  Not  if  you  mean  in  the  same 
ratio. 

"MR.  GRAY.  Would  not  the  same  grounds  exist 
after  an  increase  for  a  further  increase? 

"ADMIRAL  VREELAND.    It  would  seem  so. 

"MR.  GRAY.  There  would  be  no  advantage  gained 
by  any  nation,  then.  How  long  could  that  be  main- 
tained, that  even  increase,  and  what  advantage  would 
it  be  to  any  nation  ? 

"ADMIRAL  VREELAND.    If  it  continues  to  increase, 


SCARING  A  PEOPLE  INTO  CAMP       21 

the  poorer  nation  will  eventually  exhaust  itself,  and 
then  the  other  nations,  the  United  States  included, 
will  have  a  free  hand — I  mean,  be  free  to  build  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  changed  conditions. 

"MR.  GRAY.  Then  it  is  only  a  question  of  the  limit 
of  taxation? 

"ADMIRAL  VREELAND.    Yes,  sir." 

Up  to  a  certain  point,  that  is  quite  frank.  Each 
appropriation  paves  the  way  for  another  appropria- 
tion until  the  least  strong  go  broke.  It  is  at  this 
point  that  the  admiral  becomes  anything  but  frank. 
When  only  the  strongest  are  left — which  would  in- 
clude the  United  States — they  would  "have  a  free  hand 
to  build  in  accordance  with  the  changed  conditions." 

Was  greater  nonsense  ever  talked?  Our  "free 
hand,"  at  such  a  time,  would  consist  in  the  necessity  of 
extending  ourselves  to  the  uttermost  in  an  attempt  to 
outstrip  our  most  powerful  rival,  with  the  certainty 
that  if  we  should  do  so,  two  rivals  whom  we  could 
not  outstrip  might  combine  against  us  and  give  us 
the  beating  of  our  lives.  We  are  richer  than  any  other 
nation  in  the  world,  but  we  are  not  richer  than  any 
two  nations. 

Yet  the  militarists  talk  of  "preparedness"  as  if  no- 
body but  ourselves  could  engage  in  it. 

The  militarists  are  frauds.  They  pretend  to  love 
peace  and  to  be  concerned  only  with  defense.  The 
Navy  League  of  the  United  States  prates  much  of  the 
non-aggressive  character  of  its  demand  for  a  big  navy. 
The  League  has  headquarters  in  Washington,  has 
a  monthly  magazine  called  The  Seven  Seas,  and  is 
grinding  out  pamphlets  as  rapidly  as  men  can  write 
them  and  presses  can  print  them.  One  of  its  pam- 
phlets is  entitled  "Sixty-Seven  Reasons  for  a  Strong 


22          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

Navy  for  Defense,  But  Not  One  Reason  for  a  Navy 
for  Aggression." 

Compare  this  noble  sentiment  with  the  following 
paragraph  from  the  September  number  of  the  League's 
organ,  The  Seven  Seas: 

"In  Germany,  though  degeneracies  such  as  inordi- 
nate love  of  money  and  preoccupation  about  pain  are 
manifest  as  in  other  Western  countries,  besides  a  great 
deal  of  anti-government  talk,  the  iron-fisted  arm  of 
militarism  remedies  defects  quickly  enough.  Hard, 
pitiless  for  the  individual,  it  all  tends,  for  the  state, 
to  the  making  of  a  perfect  running  machine  for  the 
purpose  of  expansion,  conquest,  world-empire.  To 
adopt  German  standards  of  militarism  would  of  course 
be  impossible  among  Anglo-Saxons,  but  this  does  not 
minimise  the  fact  that  world-empire  is  the  only  logi- 
cal and  natural  aim  for  a  nation  that  really  desires 
to  remain  a  nation." 

And  the  Navy  League  of  the  United  States  knows 
"sixty-seven  reasons  why  we  should  have  a  strong 
navy  for  defense,  but  not  one  reason  for  a  navy  for 
aggression." 


CHAPTER  II 
WHEN  is  A  NATION  "PREPARED"  ? 

IN  a  military  sense,  when  is  a  nation  "prepared"? 
It  may  surprise  some  gentlemen  to  know  that, 
eighteen  years  ago,  Charles  M.  Schwab,  now  of  the 
Bethlehem  Steel  Company,  expressed  the  opinion  be- 
fore a  Congressional  committee  that  our  navy  would  be 
"completed"  in  ten  years!  At  that  time,  our  naval 
appropriations  were  running  round  thirty  million  dol- 
lars a  year.  Since  then,  we  have  poured  into  our 
navy  almost  two  thousand  million  dollars. 

When  Mr.  Schwab,  in  1897,  predicted  that  our  navy 
would  be  "completed"  in  1907,  he  never  dreamt  of  such 
a  navy  as  we  now  have.  Though  he  was  Mr.  Car- 
negie's head  armor  plate  man  and  had  an  armor  plate 
man's  appetite  for  government  contracts,  he  did  not 
dare  to  hope  for  such  fat  pickings  as  have  since  been 
picked.  The  naval  appropriation  bill  of  1914  took  out 
of  the  people's  earnings  the  enormous  sum  of  $140,- 
718,434.  Yet,  eight  years  after  Mr.  Schwab  believed 
our  navy  would  be  "completed"  and  after  almost  two 
thousand  million  dollars  have  been  spent,  we  are  told 
that  we  are  in  a  frightful  state  of  unpreparedness ! 

But  there  is  hope.  Some  of  the  same  gentlemen 
who,  eighteen  years  ago,  told  us  what  to  do  to  be- 
come prepared  are  still  with  us  and,  as  ever,  are  pa- 
triotically willing  to  tell  us  what  to  do.  If  we  may  take 
their  word  for  it,  all  we  need  to  do  is  to  pour  dollars 

23 


24  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

into  the  army  and  navy  where  we  used  to  pour  dimes. 
Mr.  Wilson's  defense  program  contemplates  the  ex- 
penditure upon  the  army  and  navy,  during  the  next 
five  years,  of  more  than  two  thousand  million  dollars. 

Suppose  the  President's  plan  should  be  carried  out. 
In  five  years,  should  we  be  able  to  say,  "We  are  pre- 
pared" ?  Might  we  then  rest  on  our  oars  in  the  belief 
that  the  "completed"  navy  that  Mr.  Schwab  announced 
for  1907  had  at  last  come?  By  no  means.  The  same 
reasons  that  account  for  the  failure  of  the  navy  to 
be  "completed"  at  the  time  set  by  Mr.  Schwab  would 
account  for  the  failure  of  two  thousand  more  mil- 
lions to  make  us  "prepared"  in  1920.  If  we  should  de- 
cide to  spend  two  thousand  millions  for  armament  dur- 
ing the  next  five  years,  there  will  be  two  reasons,  in 
1920,  for  spending  ten  thousand  millions  more,  for 
every  reason  that  is  now  advanced  for  spending  two 
thousand  millions. 

The  "preparedness"  delusion  is  the  most  expensive 
luxury  in  which  the  world  ever  indulged.  Its  cost 
never  stands  still.  It  constantly  rises  in  the  most  ap- 
palling fashion.  In  the  days  when  Mr.  Schwab  had 
visions  of  a  completed  navy  only  ten  years  distant, 
first-class  battleships  could  be  built  for  two  million 
dollars.  The  cost  is  now  eighteen  millions.  The 
twenty-five  million  ship  is  coming  over  the  horizon. 
Where  the  limit  is,  no  one  knows.  All  we  know  is  that 
they  are  multiplying  not  only  the  size  and  the  cost, 
but  the  number  of  ships  that  are  required.  No  mat- 
ter how  many  great  ships  we  have,  we  are  still  in 
danger.  The  naval  experts — not  of  this  country  only, 
but  of  all  countries — never  have  enough  ships.  Mili- 
tary experts  have  always  been  in  a  class  by  themselves. 
Lord  Salisbury,  when  Prime  Minister  of  England,  had 


WHEN  IS  A  NATION  "PREPARED"?     25 

his  troubles  with  them.  Writing  to  Lord  Cromer, 
in  Egypt,  Salisbury  said,  "Pay  no  attention  to  the 
military  experts.  If  they  had  their  way,  they  would 
fortify  Mars  to  prevent  an  invasion  from  the  moon." 
Nor  are  our  military  experts  different  from  the  Brit- 
ish army  experts  with  whom  Lord  Salisbury  dealt. 
Given  two  thousand  millions  to  spend  between  now  and 
1920,  they  will  be  able  to  cite  most  alarming  cir- 
cumstances to  prove  that  we  are  still  unprepared  and 
should  spend  ten  billions  in  the  succeeding  five  years. 

It  is  indeed  very  likely  that  if  we  should  begin  so 
heavily  to  arm  there  would  be  alarming  circumstances 
to  cite.  Our  warlike  preparations  could  not  go  un- 
noticed by  others  and  could  not  fail  to  excite  fear. 
If  any  particular  neighbor  believed  we  were  arming 
against  it,  that  neighbor,  unless  it  had  more  sense 
than  have  those  among  us  who  would  further  arm 
America,  might  arm  against  us.  Such  arming  against 
us,  as  the  result  of  our  arming  against  it,  would,  in 
1920,  provide  a  further  reason  for  us  to  arm  some 
more  against  our  neighbor — and  thus  it  would  go,  back 
and  forth,  until  the  people  of  both  nations,  frenzied  by 
fear  and  hatred,  and  believing  that  war  between  the 
two  countries  was  inevitable,  would  at  last  stoically  ac- 
cept it  and  leave  their  fate  to  clashing  arms. 

Germany  is  the  nation  .that  is  here  meant  and  that 
we  all  mean.  There  is  no  reason  why  we  who  are 
not  in  office  should  mince  words,  as  do  those  statesmen 
who  so  often  feel  it  necessary  to  try  to  conceal  what 
everybody  knows.  The  plain  truth  is  that  if  we 
should  decide  to  spend  two  thousand  million  dollars 
to  strengthen  our  army  and  navy,  we  should  do  so 
only  because  we  fear  Germany,  after  the  European 
War,  might  attack  us, 


26  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

But  before  we  consider  what  Germany  may  or  may 
not  do,  let  us  consider  what  would  be  the  effect  upon 
the  German  people,  of  our  spending  two  thousand  mil- 
lion dollars  to  arm  ourselves  against  them.  What 
would  be  the  effect  upon  us  if  we  were  to  learn,  after 
the  war,  that  Germany  had  decided  to  spend  two 
thousand  million  dollars  to  arm  against  us?  If  we 
knew  that  Germany  had  only  us  in  mind,  do  you  doubt 
that  we  should  be  alarmed?  Do  you  doubt  that  we 
should  hasten  to  increase  our  own  armaments? 

Consider,  then,  the  effect  we  shall  produce  upon 
the  German  people  if  we  adopt  the  President's  defense 
program.  The  German  people  know  there  is  here  no 
fear  of  attack  from  any  other  European  power  except 
Germany.  If  we  still  further  arm,  they  will  know  we 
are  arming  against  them.  Their  editors,  their  states- 
men and  all  others  in  whom  they  have  confidence,  will 
tell  them  we  are  arming  against  them,  and  quite  likely 
that  we  are  arming  with  hostile  intent.  Our  insist- 
ence that  we  are  thinking  only  of  defense  will  amount 
to  nothing.  Every  great  European  nation  that  is  now 
at  war  insisted,  before  the  war,  that  it  was  arming 
only  for  defense,  yet  not  one  of  these  nations  believed 
any  of  the  others.  So  we  may  bank  on  it  that  if 
we  should  decide  to  arm  against  Germany,  the  fear 
we  shall  inevitably  produce  in  the  Germans  will  cause 
them  to  build  ship  for  ship  against  us.  Then  hell  will 
be  let  loose,  as  our  munitions  patriots  will  be  able  to 
prove  that  a  great  nation  is  arming  against  us  and  will 
therefore  be  able  to  get  out  of  the  national  treasury 
almost  anything  they  want. 

What  likelihood  is  there  that  Germany  would  attack 
us,  even  if  we  did  not,  by  further  arming  ourselves, 
act  as  if  we  were  preparing  to  attack  her?  The  an- 


WHEN  IS  'A  NATION  "PREPARED"?     27 

swer  to  this  question  must  be  solely  a  matter  of  opinion. 
A  good  many  facts  must  be  taken  into  consideration 
in  order  to  form  an  opinion  that  is  worth  anything. 
These  facts  must  be  construed  reasonably.  Possibili- 
ties should  not  be  strained  to  produce  either  a  sense  of 
danger  or  a  sense  of  security.  Nor  can  any  opinion  be 
worth  much  that  is  tainted  by  a  desire  to  reach  it. 

The  answer  that  is  most  likely  to  be  correct  is  not 
the  one  that  is  obtained  because  it  is  sought,  but  the 
one  that  is  received  because  it  cannot  be  kept  back. 

The  first  fact  that  we  should  consider  is  that  the 
German  people  are  intrinsically  a  peaceable,  home- 
loving  class  of  human  beings.  Their  instinct  for  home 
is  so  strong  that  their  rulers,  who  know  them  best, 
raised  the  cry  when,  in  1914,  they  wanted  to  call  them 
to  arms,  that  German  homes  were  about  to  be  overrun 
by  a  foreign  foe.  If  the  Kaiser  had  any  intention  of 
overrunning  the  world  and  dominating  it,  he  knew  bet- 
ter than  to  assign  it  as  the  reason  for  calling  his  peo- 
ple to  arms.  He  knew  the  soft  spot  in  the  heart  of 
his  countrymen — their  love  of  home — and  played 
upon  it. 

That  is  the  best  feature  of  the  German  character 
upon  which  we  may  count  in  our  hopes  for  peace. 
The  worst  feature  is  the  extent  to  which  the  German 
people,  in  the  past,  have  permitted  themselves  to  be 
dominated  by  their  militarists.  Is  it  too  much  to  sus- 
pect that  the  militarists,  at  least  for  the  next  generation, 
will  not  have  so  much  influence  in  Germany?  Is 
there  not  a  possibility  that  the  militarists  themselves, 
after  this  war,  will  not  soon  be  eager  for  another? 
The  militarists,  for  the  most  part,  are  army  officers, 
who  are  members  of  the  great  land-owning  aristocracy 
commonly  called  the  "Junker"  class.  This  war  has  all 


28          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

but  shot  that  class  to  pieces.  Before  this  war  began, 
German  militarists,  when  they  thought  of  war,  thought 
of  something  short.  Their  minds  went  back  to  the 
war  with  Austria,  which  lasted  but  six  weeks,  and 
the  war  with  France,  which  was  won  in  three  months. 
At  the  beginning  of  this  war,  nobody  in  Germany  be- 
lieved it  would  last  long.  The  Kaiser  expected  to  be 
in  Paris  in  fourteen  days.  Even  after  he  missed  his 
French  dinner,  he  told  his  soldiers  that  they  would  all 
be  back  in  Germany  "before  the  leaves  fall." 

The  leaves  that  fluttered  in  the  autumn  winds  above 
him  as  he  spoke  have  long  since  moldered  away.  An- 
other crop  of  leaves  has  come  and  gone.  The  snows 
of  the  second  winter  have  beaten  down  upon  the  Ger- 
mans in  the  trenches.  Every  hillside  in  western  Russia 
and  northern  France  is  dotted  with  the  graves  of  of- 
ficers who  were  once  proud  members  of  the  German 
military  party.  And,  still,  there  is  no  peace! 

Need  we  suppose  that  the  German  militarist  who 
may  be  so  fortunate  as  to  survive  this  war  is  incap- 
able of  getting  enough  of  a  bad  thing?  Are  we  bound 
to  believe  that,  at  the  close  of  this  war,  other  young 
Germans,  unmoved  by  the  slaughter  of  the  old  mili- 
tary party,  will  eagerly  rise  to  form  another?  Or  may 
we  suppose  that  Germans,  being  human,  like  our- 
selves, are  sick  unto  death  of  war,  and  will  prize 
peace  when  they  get  it  ?  Which  is  the  more  reasonable 
conclusion  ? 

If  indications  count  for  anything,  the  German  peo- 
ple are  eager  for  peace  now.  The  German  govern- 
ment permits  no  discussion  of  the  subject,  so  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  tell.  We  can  imagine,  however,  how  in  the 
same  circumstances  we  should  feel — if  we  had  gone  to 
war  to  resist  invasion,  and  had  fought  nearly  two 


WHEN  IS  A  NATION  "PREPARED"?     29 

years  and  there  were  no  army  on  our  soil,  and  our 
own  armies  were  deadlocked  on  alien  soils,  and  our 
women  and  children  were  hungry,  and  the  original 
purpose  of  the  war  had  been  all  but  lost  sight  of.  We 
should  probably  feel  inclined  to  ask  of  our  rulers,  as 
did  Vorwaerts,  the  organ  of  the  German  Socialist 
Party,  "What  Are  We  Fighting  For?"  The  Socialist 
Party  represents  a  third  of  the  population  of  Ger- 
many. It  is  scarcely  possible  that  only  the  Socialists 
among  the  Germans  feel  that,  the  original  reason  as- 
signed for  going  to  war  having  been  lost  sight  of,  it 
is  time  to  go  home.  Yet,  for  asking  this  question  in 
November,  1915,  the  Socialist  organ  was  suppressed. 
If  Germany  had  whipped  the  world  in  two  or  three 
months,  as  her  military  party  expected  she  would,  and 
had  claimed  from  her  victims  indemnities  running  up 
into  the  billions,  there  would  seem  to  be  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  we  should  have  exercised  only  ordinary 
precaution  if  we  had  proceeded  forthwith  to  arm 
against  her.  So  great  a  victory,  if  won  at  such  slight 
cost,  would  have  intoxicated  the  military  party  and 
increased  its  prestige  before  the  people.  The  German 
treasury  would  have  been  bursting  with  British,  French 
and  Russian  gold,  while  the  lands  over  which  the  Ger- 
man flag  floated  would  have  been  numbered  only  by 
the  seven  seas.  Germany  would  have  been  the  pre- 
ponderating power,  not  only  of  Europe,  but  of  the 
world,  and  all  the  hopes  of  the  militarists  would  have 
been  realized  at  the  cost  of  but  little  sorrow  and  suf- 
fering on  the  part  of  the  people.  Germany,  with  a 
few  of  the  billions  wrung  from  other  powers  in  the 
form  of  indemnities,  could  have  built  a  tremendous 
navy  and,  if  she  had  felt  so  inclined,  trumped  up  a 
quarrel  with  us  and  fought  us. 


30          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

But  that  is  all  water  that  has  gone  under  the  bridge. 
The  Germany  that  might  have  been  cannot  be — dur- 
ing our  generation,  if  ever.  No  victory  that  Ger- 
many could  now  win  could  bring  back  from  their 
graves  the  six  hundred  thousand  German  dead  and 
thus  assuage  the  pent-up  sorrow  in  the  German  na- 
tional heart.  Nor  could  any  victory,  however  great, 
make  whole  and  well  again  the  three  million  German 
soldiers  who  have  seen  their  flesh  torn  and  their 
veins  opened  by  shot  and  shell.  Nor  could  all  the  vic- 
tories recorded  in  history,  if  duplicated  by  Germany, 
blot  out  from  the  minds  of  German  soldiers  the  hor- 
rors of  their  soldier-life;  the  awful  cannonade,  the 
ceaseless  thunder  of  the  shells,  the  clash  with  knives 
and  bayonets  at  night  and  the  machine  gun's  sputter- 
ing song  at  dawn,  the  summer's  heat  and  the  winter's 
cold,  the  weariness,  the  homesickness  and  the  despair 
of  men  who,  surrounded  by  death,  know  not  what 
moment  will  be  their  time  to  die. 

All  of  these  facts  we  should  take  into  consideration 
in  trying  to  ascertain  whether  Germany,  after  this 
war,  will  soon  be  anxious  for  another.  Yet  there  are 
more  facts.  In  no  conceivable  circumstances  can  Ger- 
many collect  a  dollar  of  indemnity  from  any  of  her 
antagonists,  and  without  such  indemnities,  she  could 
not  hope  successfully  to  fight  us. 

Even  if  it  were  certain  that  Germany  is  destined  to 
win  the  present  war,  from  what  nation  or  nations  could 
she  wrest  indemnities  ?  She  could  not  collect  anything 
from  Russia  except,  possibly,  territory.  Russia  is  so 
big  that,  within  certain  limits,  she  can  say  what  she 
will  and  will  not  do.  When  Russia  says,  "Not  a 
kopeck  of  indemnity" — as  she  said  to  Japan — she  can 
have  her  way.  The  Russian  Empire  is  so  far  flung 


WHEN  IS  A  NATION  "PREPARED"?     31 

that  even  German  armies  in  it  cannot  forever  remain 
on  the  offensive.  After  a  certain  amount  of  pene- 
tration by  the  invader,  there  comes  a  time  when  a  bal- 
ance is  established  between  the  two  armies.  The  diffi- 
culties attendant  upon  bringing  up  supplies  to  the  in- 
vading army  make  up  for  the  relative  weakness  of  the 
defending  army.  Russia  always  has  enough  room  to 
enable  her  to  back  up  and  wait  until  the  enemy  suffi- 
ciently handicaps  himself  to  make  him  harmless. 

France,  at  the  beginning  of  the  present  war,  had  the 
greatest  per  capita  debt  in  Europe.  That  debt  the  war 
has  enormously  increased.  The  piling  of  a  great  in- 
demnity upon  France  would  almost  certainly  bring 
revolution.  Financially  speaking,  France  is  the  na- 
tional image  of  the  celebrated  turnip  which,  so  it  is 
said,  contains  no  blood. 

An  indemnity  might  be  wrung  from  Great  Britain 
if  the  Germans  could  sink  the  British  fleet.  What 
chance  is  there  that  the  German  fleet  can  do  so?  The 
same  chance  that  there  always  is  that  one  ship  can 
defeat  three  that  are  just  as  large  and  just  as  courage- 
ously and  intelligently  handled.  If  there  had  been, 
in  the  opinion  of  von  Tirpitz,  the  Grand  Admiral,  a 
fighting  chance  to  defeat  the  British  fleet,  we  may  be 
quite  sure  that,  long  ago,  he  would  have  tried  to  do 
so.  The  von  Tirpitz  plan,  was  to  submarine  enough 
of  the  British  ships  to  bring  the  two  fleets  down  to  a 
plane  of  equality,  after  which  he  was  to  go  about  it 
with  his  dreadnoughts  to  destroy  the  remainder.  The 
von  Tirpitz  plan  failed.  The  British  fleet  is  larger 
than  it  was  when  the  war  began.  Twenty-five  great 
ships  have  been  built  since  the  war  began.  There  is  no 
chance  whatever  that  Germany  can  destroy  the  Brit- 
ish fleet,  and  unless  she  destroys  it,  there  is  no  chance 


32          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

whatever  that  she  can  collect  a  farthing  of  indemnity 
from  England. 

England  cannot  unconditionally  surrender  to  Ger- 
many and  remain  an  empire.  With  the  lowering  of 
her  flag,  her  colonial  empire  would  break  up  like  a 
ship  in  a  storm.  So  long  as  her  navy  remains  unde- 
feated, she  need  not  unconditionally  surrender.  Even 
if  all  of  England's  allies  were  to  be  worn  out,  Eng- 
land could  still  fight.  With  her  warships,  she  could 
form  a  lane  across  the  English  Channel  and  through 
this  lane  troop-ships  could  bear  her  armies  back  to 
England.  Great  Britain  could  then  say  to  Germany, 
"Not  a  farthing  of  indemnity,  nor  an  inch  of  territory, 
and  until  you  sink  the  British  fleet,  you  cannot  sail  a 
ship  on  the  seas  or,  except  through  others,  do  a 
pfennig's  worth  of  business  throughout  the  world." 
At  the  ordinary  expense  of  maintaining  her  navy, 
Great  Britain  could  continue  such  a  war  indefinitely. 
It  costs  no  more  for  ships  to  blockade  than  it  does  to 
maneuver  in  times  of  peace. 

After  this  war,  Germany,  like  all  the  other  par- 
ticipants in  it,  is  bound  not  only  to  be  sick  of  war  but 
to  be  poor.  She  will  do  well  if  she  rehabilitate  her- 
self in  a  generation.  But  such  probabilities  by  no 
means  prevent  those  who  insist  upon  seeing  danger 
in  this  quarter  from  seeing  it.  J.  Bernard  Walker, 
editor  of  the  Scientific  American,  has  written  a  book 
entitled  "America  Fallen :  The  Sequel  to  the  Eu- 
ropean War,"  in  which — seeming  to  write  after  the 
event — he  tells  how  Germany  came  here,  landed  troops, 
took  the  Atlantic  forts  from  the  rear,  bombarded  New 
York,  captured  Philadelphia  and  Washington  and 
made  peace  only  upon  the  payment  by  us  of  an  indem- 
nity of  twenty  billions.  I  may  add  that  Mr.  Morgan's 


WHEN  IS  A  NATION  "PREPARED"?     33 

Navy  League  of  the  United  States  thinks  so  highly  of 
this  book  that  it  has  bought  a  supply  for  free  distribu- 
tion. 

This  book,  at  least  on  its  cover,  looks  very  impres- 
sive, as  the  cover  contains  a  statement  signed  by  Ad- 
miral Dewey  in  which  he  declares  that  the  state  of  af- 
fairs described  in  the  book  "might  well  exist  if  our 
country  is  not  prepared  to  maintain  itself  at  peace  with 
all  the  world."  I  will  venture  to  say  that  any  man 
with  a  little  imagination  can  write  a  yarn,  describing 
worse  horrors,  that  a  bacteriologist  who  stands  as  high 
in  his  profession  as  Admiral  Dewey  does  in  the  pro- 
fession of  arms,  will  declare  over  his  signature  to  be 
within  the  realm  of  possibility. 

I  will  try  it  myself. 

"The  war  in  Europe  is  ended.  Germany  has  been 
conquered  and  has  agreed  to  pay  an  indemnity  of  fif- 
teen billions.  She  has  nothing  in  her  treasury.  She 
needs  money.  She  knows  we  have  lots  of  it.  The 
Kaiser  holds  long,  secret  conferences  with  the  leading 
German  bacteriologists.  They  sit  up  late  at  night. 
Night  after  night,  the  Kaiser  quits  the  conference  at 
daybreak,  the  faint  light  of  morning  throwing  a 
deadly  pallor  upon  his  brow.  Night  after  night — 
until?  Until  there  comes  a  change,  the  Kaiser  smiles, 
shakes  the  hand  of  one.  bacteriologist  particularly 
warmly,  pins  a  grand  cross  of  some  kind  or  other 
upon  his  coat  and  it  is  plain  that  the  royal  eyes  see 
a  great  rift  in  the  clouds. 

"A  few  weeks  of  preparatory  work  is  conducted  in 
German  laboratories,  but  we  may  well  pass  over  that. 

"The  scene  shifts  to  America.  All  over  the  country 
there  is  suddenly  noticed  a  sharp  increase  in  the  death 
rate  from  typhoid  fever.  Boards  of  health  critically 


34          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

examine  the  water  and  milk  supplies.  They  seem  to 
be  all  right.  The  oyster  beds  are  looked  into.  They 
are  found  to  contain  no  more  than  the  usual  number  of 
germs.  What  is  the  matter?  God  knows.  Without 
any  appreciable  reason,  the  mortality  from  typhoid  is 
increasing  fearfully.  One  day  there  were  ten  thousand 
deaths  in  Chicago.  The  next  day  there  were  twenty- 
five  thousand  deaths  in  New  York.  A  telegram  from 
Boston  says  that  people  are  dying  more  rapidly  than 
undertakers  can  bury  them  and  that  the  state  house 
is  piled  high  with  bodies  packed  in  ice  awaiting  burial. 
A  woman  in  Cincinnati — the  mother  of  six  children — 
became  crazed  when  typhoid  killed  her  last  child  and 
shot  both  her  husband  and  herself.  Two  members  of 
the  President's  cabinet  were  stricken,  and  the  disease, 
in  its  inexorable  way,  snuffed  out  their  lives.  And 
then — 

"And  then  a  wireless  message  came  from  Germany, 
'via  Sayville/  It  was  brief  and  strangely  directed — 
not  to  the  Secretary  of  State  or  to  the  President,  but 
'To  The  American  People.'  Here  it  is: 

"  'The  typhoid  epidemic  that  is  devastating  your 
land  is  the  result  of  German  planning.  German  sci- 
entists have  devised  a  method  of  making  typhoid 
germs  immune  to  heat  as  to  all  other  known  methods 
of  killing  them.  The  characteristics  of  the  germs  have 
also  been  changed  so  that,  although  your  scientists  see 
them,  they  do  not  recognize  them  as  what  they  are,  nor 
can  they  be  recognized,  since  there  are  many  other 
germs  which  they  perfectly  resemble.  Produced  as 
these  germs  are  in  our  laboratories,  they  are  of  un- 
usual virulence,  which  accounts  for  the  present  high 
mortality  from  the  disease  in  America.  In  short,  Ger- 
many is  waging  war  against  America  with  the  new 


WHEN  IS  A  NATION  "PREPARED"?     35 

weapons  of  science.  We  have  the  power  to  annihilate 
you.  Notwithstanding  everything  your  scientists  may 
do,  your  death  rate  will  rapidly  increase  until  you 
make  peace,  as  enough  germs  to  kill  the  world  can  be 
carried  in  a  trunk,  and  trusted  agents  in  America  have 
infected  all  of  your  water  supplies.  We  also  know 
how  to  destroy  these  germs  instantly.  Your  epidemic 
will  cease  immediately  upon  the  payment  by  America 
to  Germany  of  an  indemnity  of  twenty  billion  dol- 
lars.' ' 

Scientifically  possible?  Who  dare  say  it  is  not? 
Crazy?  Yes,  in  the  sense  that  it  is  far  and  away  be- 
yond the  bounds  of  probability.  But  what  about 
"America  Fallen"?  How  often  has  America  fallen 
during  the  last  139  years? 

Let  us  not,  at  the  behest  of  the  munitions  manu- 
facturers, who  fatten  on  the  war  and  war  prepara- 
tions as  buzzards  fatten  on  a  dead  cow — let  us  not  go 
mad.  Let  us  consider  probabilities  and  reasonable  pos- 
sibilities rather  than  nightmares.  Common  sense 
should  tell  us  that  there  is  far  greater  possibility 
that  the  German  people,  after  the  war,  will  do  some 
fighting  for  themselves  and  perhaps  drive  the  Hohen- 
zollerns  out  of  the  country.  The  prestige  of  the  Ger- 
man military  party  required  a  decisive  victory,  won 
at  no  great  cost.  Such  a*  victory  for  Germany  is  no 
longer  possible.  No  kind  of  victory  is  by  any  means 
sure. 

Americans  who  denounce  German  militarism  and 
then,  by  favoring  the  sort  of  "preparedness"  that  our 
munitions  patriots  advocate,  invite  American  milita- 
rism— such  Americans  would  do  well  to  read  the  his- 
tory of  the  introduction  of  militarism  into  Germany. 
They  would  do  well  to  read  this  history  because 


36  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

therein  they  may  see  how  the  poison  of  militarism,  as 
expressed  in  huge  appropriations,  works  its  way. 

The  Germans  at  first  hated  the  thing.  How  it  was 
forced  down  their  throats,  how  they  came,  first  to 
tolerate  it  and  then  to  look  upon  it  as  a  wise  measure 
of  "preparedness,"  is  admirably  told  by  Professor 
Charles  Downer  Hazen  in  his  important  work,  "Eu- 
rope Since  1815." 

The  story  in  brief  is  this:  The  present  Kaiser's 
grandfather  in  1860  conceived  it  to  be  his  duty  to  in- 
crease the  standing  army  from  215,000  to  450,000 
men.  This  was  to  be  brought  about  by  adding  23,000 
a  year  to  the  number  of  soldiers  ordinarily  recruited. 
When  the  king  brought  into  Parliament  the  first  bill 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  additional  troops,  the  legis- 
lature passed  it,  believing  that  it  was  only  of  a  pro- 
visional nature.  But  when  the  king,  the  next  year, 
brought  in  another  bill  of  the  same  kind  and  Parlia- 
ment learned  what  were  his  real  designs,  the  bill  was 
thrown  out.  The  king  insisted  upon  his  bill.  Parlia- 
ment insisted  upon  its  rights.  Says  Hazen: 

"A  deadlock  ensued.  The  king  was  urged  to  abol- 
ish Parliament  altogether.  This  he  would  not  do  be- 
cause he  had  sworn  to  uphold  the  constitution  that  es- 
tablished it.  He  thought  of  abdicating.  He  never 
thought  of  abandoning  the  reform.  He  had  written 
out  his  abdication  and  signed  it  when  he  at  last  con- 
sented to  call  to  the  ministry  as  a  final  experiment  a 
new  man,  known  for  his  boldness,  his  independence, 
his  devotion  to  the  monarchy,  Otto  von  Bismarck. 
Bismarck  was  appointed  President  of  the  Ministry 
September  23,  1862.  On  that  very  day,  the  cham- 
ber rejected  anew  the  credits  asked  for  by  the  king 
for  the  new  regiments.  The  conflict  entered  upon  its 


WHEN  IS  A  NATION  "PREPARED"?     37 

most  acute  phase,  and  a  new  era  began  for  Prussia 
and  the  world. 

"In  this  interview,  Bismarck  told  the  king  frankly 
that  he  was  willing  to  carry  out  his  policy  whether  the 
Parliament  agreed  to  it  or  not.  'I  will  rather  perish 
with  the  king/  he  said,  'than  forsake  your  majesty  in 
the  contest  with  parliamentary  government.'  His  bold- 
ness determined  the  king  to  tear  up  the  paper  contain- 
ing his  abdication  and  to  continue  the  struggle  with 
the. chamber  of  deputies.  .  .  . 

"For  four  years  the  conflict  continued.  The  con- 
stitution was  not  abolished,  Parliament  was  called  re- 
peatedly, the  lower  house  voted  year  after  year  against 
the  budget,  supported  in  this  by  the  voters,  the  upper 
house  voted  for  it,  and  the  king  acted  as  if  this  made  it 
legal.  The  period  was  one  of  virtual  dictatorship  and 
suspension  of  parliamentary  life.  The  king  continued 
to  collect  the  taxes,  the  army  was  thoroughly  reor- 
ganized and  absolutely  controlled  by  the  authorities, 
and  the  lower  house  had  no  mode  of  opposition  save 
the  verbal  one,  which  was  entirely  ineffective." 

From  this  we  see  how  loath  was  Germany  to  be- 
come militaristic.  The  people  supported  the  lower 
house  in  its  opposition  to  an  increased  army  and  a 
four  years'  dictatorship  was  required  to  make  them 
swallow  the  dose.  Now  the  world  blames  Germany 
for  its  militarism.  Can  we  be  quite  sure  that  if  we 
take  the  same  road,  we  shall  not  arrive  at  the  same 
destination  ?  Once  we  seriously  make  the  plunge,  is  it 
likely  that  we  shall  be  able  to  turn  back?  We  may 
want  to,  but  shall  we  dare?  If  during  the  next  five 
years  we  spend  two  thousand  millions,  Germany  will 
have  much  more  reason  to  "prepare"  against  us  than 
we  now  have  to  "prepare"  against  her,  because  the 


38          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

Germans  will  know  we  are  arming  against  them  and 
we  do  not  now  know  that  Germany  has  ever  armed 
against  us.  If  the  Germans,  taking  fright,  should 
then  arm  against  us,  should  we  be  either  surprised  or 
affronted?  And  if  they  should  begin  to  arm  against 
us  could  we  say,  after  we  had  spent  our  two  thou- 
sand millions,  "Our  navy  is  now  completed,  and  we 
will  build  no  more"  ?  With  Germany  building  against 
us,  could  we  say  that  ?  We  could,  but  it  is  exceedingly 
unlikely  that  we  would.  But  if  we  did  not,  the  build- 
ing, on  each  side,  would  go  on  to  the  last  bloody  chap- 
ter. Is  it  not  well,  while  there  is  still  time,  to  think 
of  these  things? 

We  should  pay  no  more  attention  to  our  munitions 
patriots  than  Lord  Salisbury  told  Lord  Cromer  to  pay 
to  the  military  experts.  Their  patriotism  is  of  a  most 
peculiar  kind.  They  are  always  ready  to  advise  the 
government.  They  are  always  ready  to  shout  for 
the  flag.  Unfortunately  for  us,  but  not  for  them- 
selves, they  are  never  ready  to  take  their  hands  out 
of  the  national  treasury.  They  profess  to  believe  the 
country  is  in  great  danger,  but  they  are  unwilling  that 
this  danger  shall  be  averted  until  a  price  has  been  paid 
to  themselves  for  its  safety.  In  other  words,  they  are 
unwilling  that  the  government  shall  manufacture  its 
own  warships  and  war-materials.  They  want  the 
profits  that  can  be  made  by  making  and  selling  these 
things  to  the  government. 

Secretary  of  the  Navy  Daniels,  in  his  report  for 
1914,  said: 

"Contrary  to  popular  idea,  the  Navy  Department  in 
what  it  manufactures  does  so,  from  a  superdread- 
nought  to  a  gallon  of  paint  or  a  pound  of  powder, 
cheaper  than  the  same  can  be  purchased." 


WHEN  IS  A  NATION  "PREPARED"?     39 

The  Hon.  Clyde  H.  Tavenner  of  Illinois,  in  a  most 
remarkable  expose  of  the  munitions  patriots  that  was 
reported  in  the  Congressional  Record  of  February  15, 
1915,  said: 

"Should  the  government  manufacture  all  of  its  mu- 
nitions, I  predict  that  the  Navy  League  would  not  only 
lock  the  doors  of  its  suite  in  the  National  Capital,  from 
which  it  carries  on  its  lobbying,  morning,  noon  and 
night,  but  that  the  same  patriots  for  profit  who  are 
now  clamoring  for  a  bigger  and  bigger  navy,  in  the 
certain  knowledge  that  if  their  agitation  is  successful 
they  will  draw  down  contracts  worth  millions,  will  be 
among  the  loudest  in  their  protestations  against  an 
annual  expenditure  of  $250,000,000  for  war  in  time 
of  peace." 

Representative  Tavenner's  address  is  altogether  the 
most  important  contribution  that  has  yet  been  made 
in  this  country  to  the  discussion  of  the  evils  of  mil- 
itarism. He  quotes  names,  dates  and  figures  to  show 
by  whom  and  of  how  much  we  have  been  robbed  in 
the  past.  He  shows  how  the  ammunition,  gun  and 
armor  plate  patriots  give  employment  to  army  and 
navy  officers  who  are  either  on  the  retired  list  or  to 
whom  the  government  has  granted  long  leaves  of 
absence.  He  cites  at  least  one  case  where  such  an  em- 
ployee of  an  interest  that  "was  engaged  in  milking  the 
government  actually  had  deskroom  in  the  Navy  De- 
partment. He  shows  how  the  government  turns  over 
to  the  powder  trust  all  the  scientific  information  it 
can  gather  about  powder,  only  to  have  the  trust,  under 
an  agreement  with  German  powder  makers,  turn  over 
the  information  to  Germany.  He  quotes  the  text  of 
this  agreement,  which  also  binds  the  American  pow- 
der trust  forthwith  upon  receipt  of  an  order  from  the 


40          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

United  States  government  to  report  all  the  facts,  in- 
cluding the  amount  of  the  order  and  the  kind  of  pow- 
der, to  the  German  powder  makers.  This  agreement 
was  made  in  1897  and  for  years  was  in  force. 

Representative  Tavenner  quotes  the  testimony  of  a 
former  sales  agent  of  the  powder  trust  that  the  con- 
cern maintained  a  lobby  in  Washington  and  paid 
the  manager  thereof  $30,000  a  year  and  expenses  to 
dispense  "entertainment  to  their  customers" — that  is 
to  say,  to  your  servants  in  Washington  who  have  the 
power  to  enter  into  contracts  on  your  behalf.  This 
statement,  it  is  only  fair  to  say,  was  denied  by  the  pow- 
der trust,  and  is  therefore  probably  not  true. 

Munitions  patriots,  the  world  over,  seem  to  be  both 
a  lavish  and  a  merry  crew  when  "customers"  are  to 
be  entertained.  Mr.  Tavenner  quotes  part  of  an  ar- 
ticle written  by  M.  Jules  Huret  with  regard  to  the 
manner  in  which  the  Krupps  dispense  good  cheer  while 
contracts  from  foreign  governments — or  their  own, 
for  that  matter — are  under  consideration.  This  French 
writer,  describing  the  Essener  Hof,  the  private  estab- 
lishment maintained  by  the  Krupps  for  such  purposes, 
said: 

"This  Krupp  hotel  is  a  very  curious  place.  With  its 
double  marble  staircase,  with  columns  of  rose-colored 
marble  and  bannisters  of  gilded  copper,  it  has  dignity. 
In  the  vestibule,  on  either  side  of  a  stone  chimney- 
place,  sculptured  masks  represent  the  five  continents. 
The  ground  is  covered  with  red  tiles,  along  which  red 
carpets  run.  Red  leather  settees  and  armchairs  are 
lined  along  the  walls.  The  guests  of  the  firm  dine  in  a 
special  hall.  After  a  few  days,  they  all  know  one  an- 
other, and  they  soon  meet  around  a  large  round  table. 
Nothing  could  show  better  than  these  occasions  how 


WHEN  IS  A  NATION  "PREPARED"?     41 

much  that  is  artificial  our  civilization  contains.  Turks, 
Bulgars,  Serbs,  Japs,  Chilean  and  Argentinian  rep- 
resentatives will  be  there. 

"There  will  also  be  Scandinavians,  Russians  and 
Belgians.  At  the  end  of  the  meal,  when  the  French 
wines  have  got  a  little  into  their  heads,  the  voices  will 
rise,  and  all  these  enemies  will  clink  glasses  for  a 
long  time  like  brothers,  amid  laughter  and  the  smoke 
of  long  cigars,  at  the  cost  of  the  Krupps — a  thousand 
leagues  from  the  thought  of  the  reasons  that  brought 
them  there.  All  these  gentry  will  perhaps  be  slaughter- 
ing one  another  one  fine  day"  (they  are  doing  it  now) 
"with  these  guns  which  they  have  come  to  see  bored. 
But  while  they  are  waiting  for  the  steel  to  cool,  they 
'booze,'  as  William  II  said  to  Jules  Simon. 

"Some  of  these  representatives  stay  a  year,  even 
two  years,  to  watch  the  processes  of  manufacture,  so 
that  with  its  fifty  rooms,  the  Essen  hotel  costs  the  firm 
something  like  £ 20,000  a  year,  without  counting  inci- 
dental expenses.  Two  years  ago,  for  instance,  when 
the  Chinese  mission  arrived — eighteen  persons  with 
their  attendants — there  was  an  insufficiency  of  accom- 
modation. Frau  Krupp  invited  the  Turkish  officers, 
whom  she  had  been  harboring  for  a  long  time,  to  make 
a  little  journey  to  London  and  Paris  at  her  expense, 
under  the  guidance  of  a  young  officer  attached  to  the 
works.  They  stayed  away  five  days,  enjoyed  them- 
selves, as  may  be  imagined,  and  returned  when  the 
Celestials  had  gone  again.  The  stay  of  the  Chinamen 
themselves  had  cost  £2,000 — special  trains,  banquets, 
etc," 

If  it  were  true  as  charged,  which  of  course  it  is  not, 
that  our  powder  trust  maintained  an  expensive  lobby 
in  Washington,  we  might  gather  from  this  pastoral 


42  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

German  scene  some  idea  of  the  manner  in  which  pro- 
ceedings were  conducted.  We  can  see,  at  any  rate, 
how  the  servants  of  the  capitalist  classes,  the  world 
over,  gather  under  the  roof  of  one  great  armament 
concern  and  make  merry  at  the  expense  of  a  company 
that  is  trying  to  keep  the  world  at  peace  by  prepar- 
ing it  for  war. 

Mr.  Tavenner  goes  on  further  to  show  the  interna- 
tional character  of  the  munitions  patriots,  the  world 
over;  how  the  armament  trust  of  one  nation  owns 
shares  of  stock  in  the  armament  companies  of  other 
nations,  and  how  nations  are  induced  to  arm  by  hiring 
the  newspapers  of  other  nations  to  print  articles  in- 
dicating that  an  attack  is  intended.  Documentary  evi- 
dence in  support  of  these  charges  is  offered.  Mr. 
Schwab's  Bethlehem  Steel  Company,  for  instance, 
owns  4,301  shares  of  stock  in  one  of  the  greatest  gun- 
manufacturing  companies  in  England,  the  Harvey 
Steel  Company — or  did,  at  any  rate,  in  1912.  The 
fact  is  also  noted  that  in  England  stock  in  the  great 
Armstrong  gun  company  is  held  by  60  noblemen,  their 
wives,  sons,  or  daughters,  fifteen  baronets,  twenty 
knights,  eight  members  of  parliament,  twenty  military 
and  naval  officers  and  eight  journalists.  Mr.  Taven- 
ner tried  to  slip  a  paragraph  into  the  last  naval  bill  re- 
quiring all  contractors  to  file  lists  of  their  stockhold- 
ers, but  Congress  cut  it  out.  Mr.  Tavenner  wanted 
the  country  to  know  the  names  of  all  who  are  profiting 
from  "preparedness."  Congress  smelled  the  mouse 
and  refused  to  let  the  names  be  made  public. 

Mr.  Tavenner  in  his  expose  goes  on  to  show  how 
the  government  is  paying  $17.50  for  a  shrapnel  shell 
that  it  is  itself  manufacturing  in  small  lots  for  $7.50, 
and  $7  for  a  fuse  that  the  government  is  making  in 


WHEN  IS  A  NATION  "PREPARED"?     43 

small  lots  for  $2.92.  Armor  plate  that  can  be  made 
for  $279  a  ton  is  sold  to  the  government  for  $440 
and  has  been  sold  for  as  much  as  $600. 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  try  the  acid  test  for  pa- 
triotism upon  the  munitions  gentlemen.  Ask  the  great 
bankers  to  sign  a  statement  binding  themselves,  in  the 
event  of  war,  to  give  the  government  the  use  of  their 
fortunes  for  $15  a  month.  That  is  all  a  soldier  gets 
for  the  use  of  his  life.  Why  should  bankers  get  rich 
in  war  while  poor  men  are  dying  in  it? 

If  the  munitions  patriots  agree  to  urge  the  govern- 
ment to  make  its  own  war  weapons,  and  the  bank- 
ers agree  to  rent  their  fortunes  as  cheaply  as  a  sol- 
dier rents  his  life — then  and  not  until  then  will  these 
gentlemen  have  proved  their  right  to  be  considered  un- 
selfish patriots. 


CHAPTER  III 

OUR   REAL   NAVAL   STRENGTH 

COMPULSORY  military  service  is  raising  its  ugly 
head  in  America.  This  in  face  of  the  fact  that 
two  of  the  highest  authorities  in  the  American  navy 
say  we  are  strong  enough  on  water  to  defeat  Germany 
or  any  other  nation,  save  Great  Britain.  The  naval 
authorities  who  say  our  navy  is  already  strong  enough 
to  defeat  that  of  Germany  are  Admirals  Fletcher  and 
'Badger.  Admiral  Fletcher  is  the  highest  active  officer 
in  the  navy,  ranking  next  to  Dewey  who,  while  on 
the  active  list  for  life  by  grace  of  Congress,  is  not 
active  in  the  sense  that  he  goes  to  sea  or,  in  the  event 
of  war,  could  go  to  sea.  Admiral  Fletcher  is  the  com- 
mander of  our  greatest  fleet — the  Atlantic — and  if  we 
were  to-day  at  war  would,  unless  superseded,  lead  our 
armada  to  battle.  Admiral  Badger,  until  he  retired 
a  year  or  so  ago,  held  Fletcher's  present  place.  If 
any  one  is  able  to  make  an  accurate  estimate  of  the 
relative  strength  of  fighting  craft,  these  men  should 
be  able  to  do  so.  The  opinion  of  each  of  these  officers 
is  that  the  American  fleet  is  stronger  than  that  of 
Germany. 

Official  proof  of  these  statements  will  be  given  here- 
with. In  December,  1914,  Admirals  Fletcher  and 
Badger  were  witnesses  before  the  House  Committee 
on  Naval  Affairs.  Both  of  them  were  then,  as  they 
are  now,  in  favor  of  a  larger  navy.  Was  there  ever 

44 


OUR  REAL  NAVAL  STRENGTH         45 

a  naval  officer  who  was  not  in  favor  of  a  larger  navy? 
But  Judge  Witherspoon,  of  Mississippi,  who  was  a 
member  of  the  committee,  was  not  in  favor  of  a  larger 
navy.  He  thought  he  saw  through  the  campaign  for 
greater  "preparedness"  on  water,  and  fought  it.  Un- 
like many  members  of  Congress,  he  had  at  his  tongue's 
end  the  essential  facts  pertaining  to  the  world's  navies. 
Armed  with  these  facts,  he  had  a  way  of  backing 
admirals  into  a  corner  and  making  them  admit  that 
white  was  white  instead  of  black.  He  backed  Ad- 
mirals Fletcher  and  Badger  into  a  corner.  Official 
stenographers  were  present  and  took  down  a  report 
of  the  proceedings.  This  report  is  incorporated  in  a 
volume  of  1,100  pages.  The  American  people  do  not 
know  it  exists.  It  should  be  available  to  the  public, 
but  it  isn't.  When  I  wrote  to  the  Government  Print- 
ing Office  for  it,  I  was  told  that  it  was  out  of  print. 
Plenty  of  reports  on  hog  cholera  and  the  foot  and 
mouth  disease  are  not  out  of  print.  I  went  to  Wash- 
ington and,  through  the  courtesy  of  the  Hon.  Clyde 
H.  Tavenner,  obtained  the  copy  that  he  had  in  his 
office.  The  name  of  the  book  is  "Hearings  Before 
the  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  on  Estimates  Submitted  by  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Navy."  It  is  doubtless  in  many  public 
libraries.  It  should  be  in  every  home  in  America. 
If  it  were,  America  would  not  be  full  of  fright.  It 
could  not  be,  because  the  facts  that  this  book  contains 
are  convincing.  They  show  that  Germany,  with  her 
present  strength,  could  not  invade  this  country  if  she 
would. 

In  this  chapter,  I  shall  quote  liberally  from  that 
book,  in  each  case  giving  the  number  of  the  page. 
The  reason  therefor  will  become  plain. 


46          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

The  big  gun  of  the  munitions  patriots  and  other 
big  interests  is  fear.  If  they  can  thoroughly  alarm 
the  people,  the  interests  can  get  what  they  have  so 
long  sought — a  greater  navy — in  addition  to  some- 
thing that,  until  now,  they  never  had  the  hardihood 
to  advocate — a  great  army.  Since  fear  is  the  weapon 
with  which  the  militarists  are  fighting,  it  is  the  weapon 
that  must  be  destroyed  if  the  militarists  are  to  be 
defeated. 

The  testimony  of  Admirals  Fletcher  and  Badger 
is  an  antidote  to  fear. 

The  reader  should  bear  in  mind  that  throughout 
the  testimony  to  be  quoted  here,  whenever  battleship- 
strength  is  mentioned  that  it  means  in  the  case  of  each 
and  every  nation,  the  number  of  battleships  built, 
building  and  authorized.  The  American  battleship- 
strength  at  the  time  of  the  hearings  before  the  House 
Committee  on  Naval  Affairs  was  40.  Keep  that  in 
mind — 40  American  battleships. 

On  page  545  of  the  book  mentioned,  Mr.  Butler,  a 
member  of  the  committee,  endeavored  to  obtain  from 
Admiral  Fletcher  his  opinion  of  our  relative  naval 
strength.  I  quote: 

"MR.  BUTLER — Where  do  we  stand,  Admiral  ? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — I  have  not  personally  gone 
into  that,  but  I  have  estimates  that  place  us  about 
third  at  the  present  time." 

Stick  a  pin  there.  America  third  in  naval  strength. 
That  meant  that  in  his  opinion  Germany  was  ahead 
of  us.  Let  us  now  turn  to  the  testimony  beginning 
on  page  548  and  see  how  Judge  Witherspoon  com- 
pelled him  to  admit  that,  in  his  opinion,  the  American 
Navy  could  defeat  the  German  Navy  and  was  second 
only  to  that  of  Great  Britain : 


OUR  REAL  NAVAL  STRENGTH         47 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — How  many  battleships  has 
England  got? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — According  to  this  table  here 
(indicating)  England  has  twenty  dreadnoughts  built. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — The  total  number?  How 
many  has  she  in  all? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — This  table  puts  it  at  60. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — That  is,  60  battleships? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Sixty  battleships. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — I  did  not  ask  you  about  that 
statement.  I  have  seen  that  old  statement  before.  I 
do  not  care  anything  about  that  statement.  The  Navy 
Yearbook  puts  down  the  number  of  English  battle- 
ships, completed,  building  and  authorized  at  72.  Now 
your  idea  is  that  if  those  72  ships  were  pitted  against 
ours,  we  would  not  be  able  to  resist  them;  is  that 
it? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — We  could  resist  them,  but 
we  would  probably  be  defeated. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — That  is  what  I  mean.  We 
could  not  resist  them  successfully? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — No;  all  else  being  equal. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — It  has  been  told  this  commit- 
tee by  high  authority  in  the  navy  department — among 
others,  Admiral  Vreeland — that  if  we  had  a  war  with 
England,  on  account  of  its  relations  with  other  nations 
in  Europe,  it  could  not  afford  to  send  more  than  half 
its  ships  against  us.  Do  you  believe  that  is  so?" 

Let  us  pause  a  moment  before  we  read  the  admiral's 
answer.  A  direct  reply  to  the  question  might  have 
brought  another  question  as  to  whether  our  40  bat- 
tleships would  be  unable  to  cope  with  the  36  that  Great 
Britain  might  be  able  to  send  against  us.  The  obvious 
answer  to  this  impending  question  would  not  be  good 


48          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

for  the  larger  American  Navy  campaign.  So  the 
Admiral  replied : 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — That  is  a  question  of  policy 
and  of  political  conditions  in  Europe  upon  which  I 
would  not  pretend  to  pass  judgment. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Then  your  statement  that 
we  could  not  resist  England  would  be  on  the  assump- 
tion that  she  could  send  her  entire  fleet,  or  more  than 
half  of  it,  against  us? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Yes,  sir;  she  would  control 
the  sea  if  she  could  keep  there  a  more  powerful  fleet 
than  ours. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Or  not  afraid  of  war  with 
the  rest  of  the  world;  not  afraid  to  take  all  the  ships 
away  from  her  own  coast,  and  to  send  all  of  them, 
or  a  large  majority  of  them,  against  us?  Your  state- 
ment is  based  on  that? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Yes,  sir.  It  is  based  on 
actual  superiority. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Well,  on  the  assumption  that 
what  other  naval  experts  have  told  us  is  correct — 
that  she  could  not  send  more  than  50  per  cent,  of  her 
72  against  us — you  would  not  say  then  that  we  would 
not  be  able  to  resist  them  successfully,  would  you?" 

Here  was  the  dreaded  question  that  the  Admiral 
had  seen  coming  and  tried  to  dodge.  This  is  the  way 
he  dodged  it: 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — I  would  not  like  to  pass 
judgment  on  a  supposititious  case  of  that  kind." 

Everybody  knows  how  a  naval  officer  dislikes  to 
consider  "a  supposititious  case."  They  will  consider, 
until  the  cows  come  home,  supposititious  cases  that 
point  to  the  necessity  of  a  larger  navy.  The  present 
hullaballoo  for  a  larger  army  and  a  larger  navy  is 


OUR  REAL  NAVAL  STRENGTH        49 

predicated  upon  the  supposition  that  if  Germany  were 
to  send  her  fleet  against  us  we  should  be  defeated. 

But  when  Admiral  Fletcher  was  asked  his  opinion 
as  to  whether  Great  Britain,  if  she  could  send  36 
battleships  against  our  40  could  defeat  them,  he 
dodged  the  question  on  the  ground  that  he  did  "not 
like  to  pass  judgment  on  a  supposititious  case."  I 
lay  this  point  bare  because  it  gives  additional  signifi- 
cance to  the  Admiral's  subsequent  admission  that,  in 
his  opinion,  our  navy  is  not,  as  he  told  Mr.  Butler, 
third  and  therefore  inferior  to  that  of  Germany,  but 
second  and  superior  to  that  of  any  nation  except  Great 
Britain.  The  admissions  wrung  from  an  unwilling 
witness  are  always  important.  A  man's  judgment 
may  be  warped  by  his  desires.  They  are  never  warped 
against  his  desires. 

But  let  us  proceed  with  the  testimony: 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Now,  according  to  the  Navy 
Yearbook,  Germany  has  battleships  built,  building  and 
authorized,  39.  Would  you  say  that  if  she  could 
send  all  those  ships  against  us,  we  would  not  be  able 
to  resist  them? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — I  should  say  that  we  ought 
to,  if  we  have  the  greater  force. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Yes;  we  ought  to.  Certainly, 
we  ought;  and  we  could? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Yes,  sir;  the  greater  force 
should  win. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Yes,  we  could. 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — I  think  so. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Now,  it  has  been  stated  to  us 
that  if  Germany  were  at  war  with  us  she  could  not 
afford,  either  to  send  more  than  one-half  her  ships 
against  us. 


50          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — That  I  do  not  know. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — I  am  not  asking  you  whether 
you  do  or  do  not.  Assuming  that  she  could  send  only 
half  of  her  39,  would  you  not  say  that  we  could  suc- 
cessfully resist  that  number?" 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Yes,  sir;  I  would  say  so  if 
all  our  force  is  available  to  meet  her. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — I  would  too.  Now  take 
France.  This  Navy  Yearbook  says  that  France  has 
a  grand  total  of  battleships,  built,  building  and  author- 
ized, of  29 — eleven  less  than  we  have.  Would  you 
not  say  that  if  she  sent  all  hers  against  us  that  we 
would  be  able  successfully  to  resist  them? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Yes;  our  force  available  be- 
ing the  greater. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — And  if  she  sent  only  one- 
half  of  them,  we  would  not  have  much  of  a  fight, 
would  we? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — No,  we  ought  not  to. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — That  is  the  way  I  look  at 
it.  Here  is  Japan,  which,  according  to  the  Navy  Year- 
book, has  only  19  battleships,  or  21  less  than  we  have 
got.  If  Japan  should  send  all  of  her  19  against  us, 
do  you  not  think  we  would  be  able  successfully  to  re- 
sist them? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Yes,  I  should  say,  if  all  of 
our  force  were  free  to  meet  them  at  the  time. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — And  if  she  did  not  send  but 
half  of  them,  there  would  not  be  much  of  a  scrap, 
would  there? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Probably  not. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Now,  here  is  Russia,  that  the 
Navy  Yearbook  says  has  a  grand  total  of  battleships, 
built,  building  and  authorized,  of  15.  If  she  should 


OUR  REAL  NAVAL  STRENGTH         51 

send  all  of  them  against  us,  would  you  not  say  that 
we  could  successfully  resist  them? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Yes,  sir. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — And  if  she  sent  half  of  them, 
there  would  not  be  any  fight  at  all,  would  there  ? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Not  much. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Here  is  Italy,  that  has  a 
grand  total,  according  to  the  Navy  Yearbook,  of  17 
battleships.  We  could  successfully  resist  them, 
whether  she  sent  all  of  them,  or  a  part  of  them,  could 
we  not? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Yes;  I  think  so. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Now  Austria-Hungary,  ac- 
cording to  the  Navy  Yearbook,  has  a  grand  total  of 
battleships,  built,  building  and  authorized,  of  10.  We 
could  successfully  resist  them,  could  we  not? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — I  think  so. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Then  what  nation  is  there 
that  we  are  not  prepared  successfully  to  resist?  There 
is  not  one  on  earth,  is  there,  Admiral — not  a  single 
one? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Well,  Judge,  I  think  there 
is. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Well,  which  one?  I  have 
gone  through  the  big  ones.  Tell  me  which  one? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER— >I  should  say  that  England 
has  a  navy  so  much  more  powerful  than  that  of  any 
other  nation  in  the  world  that  she  could  easily  keep 
control  of  the  seas. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — England.  Well,  what  other 
one,  then?" 

The  Admiral  is  now  in  the  corner,  and,  as  the 
pugilists  say,  "taking  the  count."  Here  is  his  an- 
swer : 


52  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — I  do  not  think  we  need 
greatly  fear  any  other  single  nation." 

But  Judge  Witherspoon  was  remorseless  in  push- 
ing the  witness.  He  determined  to  tie  him  down  even 
more  tightly.  Apparently  he  was  not  satisfied  with 
the  Admiral's  admission  that,  in  his  opinion,  we  need 
not  "greatly"  fear  defeat  at  the  hands  of  the  German 
fleet.  Judge  Witherspoon  wanted  to  make  him  admit 
that  we  need  not  fear  defeat  at  all  at  Germany's 
hands.  One  more  question  did  the  business: 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Then  there  is  no  other  nation 
except  England  that,  in  your  judgment,  we  could  not 
successfully  defend  ourselves  against? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — I  think  that  is  correct;  yes." 

The  witness  having  changed  his  mind,  without  leav- 
ing his  seat,  as  to  the  ability  of  Germany,  with  her  39 
battleships,  to  defeat  our  40,  Judge  Witherspoon  asked 
him  if  England  had  any  battleships  as  large  as  some 
of  ours.  Watch  how  unwillingly  the  Admiral  admit- 
ted that  our  largest  ships  are  the  most  powerful  in 
the  world: 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — England  has  many  ships 
which  are  very  nearly  of  the  same  power  of  our 
own  ships  of  same  date  of  building. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Let  us  see  about  that,  now. 
I  do  not  believe  she  has,  though  you  know  more  about 
it  than  I  do.  In  this  Navy  Yearbook,  which  gives  a 
list  of  the  English  battleships,  I  find  that  the  last  five 
dreadnoughts  that  England  built  or  is  building  are 
named  the  Royal  Sovereign,  Royal  Oak,  Remiles,  Rev- 
olution and  Revenge,  each  of  which  has  a  tonnage  of 
26,000. 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Yes,  sir. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — And  we  have  two  ships,  the 


OUR  REAL  NAVAL  STRENGTH         53 

Pennsylvania  and  the  No.  39,  which  have  a  tonnage 
of  31,400,  and  then  we  have  authorized  three  more 
that  are  to  have  a  tonnage,  as  I  understand,  of  31,000. 

"THE  CHAIRMAN — Thirty-two  thousand. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Thirty-two  thousand  tons. 
In  other  words,  the  tonnage  of  the  Pennsylvania  and 
No.  39  is  5,400  tons  greater  than  that  of  the  last 
five  English  dreadnoughts  that  are  building,  and  the 
last  three  dreadnoughts  that  we  are  building  have  a 
tonnage  of  6,000  tons  greater  than  the  last  five  Eng- 
lish ships.  Do  you  tell  me  that  these  English  ships 
are  equal  to  ours? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — No;  I  did  not  say  that. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — Do  not  you  regard  them  as 
inferior  to  ours? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER — Yes;  as  near  as  we  can  esti- 
mate. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON — I  do  too.  And  the  arma- 
ment of  these  five  ships  is  eight  fifteen-inch  guns, 
while  the  armament  of  the  five  American  ships  I  have 
referred  to  is  twelve  fourteen-inch  guns.  Which  is 
the  more  powerful  armament — eight  fifteen-inch  guns 
or  twelve  fourteen-inch  guns? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER. — I  think  the  twelve  four- 
teen-inch guns  more  powerful,  but  I  am  not  sure  this 
opinion  is  concurred  in  by  all  authorities. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON. — Then,  understanding  your 
testimony,  after  reviewing  it,  do  you  want  us  to  un- 
derstand that  England  is  the  only  nation  on  earth  that 
has  a  navy  that  we  could  not  successfully  resist? 

"ADMIRAL  FLETCHER. — •/  think  that  is  the  fair  con- 
clusion; yes,  sir;  at  the  present  time." 

Is  this  news?  If  so,  is  it  important?  The  New 
York  newspapers  that  are  leading  the  fight  for  pre- 


54          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

paredness  do  not  think  so.  I  know,  because  I  tried 
them  out.  I  read  all  of  the  foregoing  testimony  dur- 
ing an  address  that  I  made  in  New  York.  The  re- 
porters of  the  leading  newspapers  were  sitting  at  a 
table  in  front  of  the  platform.  Before  I  read  the 
testimony,  I  pointed  to  the  reporters  and  told  them 
I  was  going  to  give  them  some  news,  that  I  knew  they 
would  be  willing  to  write  it  if  their  editors  would 
print  it,  and  that  I  did  not  believe  a  newspaper  in 
New  York  would  print  this  news,  though  its  authen- 
ticity was  attested  by  the  government  itself. 

All  of  the  newspapers,  the  next  morning,  contained 
reports  of  my  address.  Only  one  of  them  mentioned 
the  testimony  and  that  one  gave  it  but  a  short  sen- 
tence. The  New  York  Times,  which  daily  flaunts 
the  slogan,  "All  the  news  that's  fit  to  print,"  printed 
a  report  of  my  speech,  but  gave  not  one  word  to 
Admiral  Fletcher's  testimony.  Why  ?  Was  it  not  "fit 
to  print"  ?  Or  is  the  Times  not  fit  to  print  the  news  ? 
If  the  admission  of  the  highest  active  officer  in  the 
American  Navy  that  we  need  not  fear  the  German 
Navy  is  not  news,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  news. 

The  people — or  a  good  many  of  them,  at  any  rate — 
believe  we  are  in  danger.  They  believe  our  navy  is 
not  as  strong  as  that  of  Germany.  They  would  doubt- 
less be  interested  in  knowing  that  our  highest  active 
naval  officer  believes  our  navy  is  stronger  than  that 
of  Germany. 

But  they  are  not  permitted  to  read  this  fact  in  the 
munitions  press.  It  is  "not  news."  But  the  munitions 
press  never  fails  to  discern  the  news-value  in  the  ser- 
mon of  some  "Christian"  minister  who  is  able  to 
deduce  from  the  Scriptures  that  we  should  be  amply 
justified  in  sending  this  country  down  the  same  bloody 


OUR  REAL  NAVAL  STRENGTH         55 

chute  of  "preparedness"  that  is  killing  Europe.  Such 
an  interview  is  always  worth  a  column.  Also,  there 
is  great  news-value  in  the  opinion  of  any  nonentity 
lately  returned  from  Europe  that  this  country  should 
hasten  to  arm.  As  if  we  were  not  already  armed! 
A  nation  that  has  a  navy  more  powerful  than  that  of 
any  other,  save  one,  in  the  world ! 

Nor  is  Admiral  Fletcher  alone  in  this  opinion. 
Admiral  Badger,  who  preceded  him  as  commander 
of  the  Atlantic  fleet  and  highest  on  the  active  list, 
admitted  as  much.  I  will  quote  only  the  concluding 
paragraphs  of  his  testimony  which  appear  on  page 

495: 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON. — Well,  I  wanted  to  get  your 
views  about  that,  because  I  do  not  like  to  hear  Ameri- 
cans running  around  and  talking  about  the  German 
Navy  being  superior  to  ours.  I  know  it  is  not  so. 

"ADMIRAL  BADGER. — You  have  not  heard  me  say 
that. 

"MR.  WITHERSPOON. — No;  and  I  am  glad  that  is 
so.  I  hope  you  never  will  say  it,  because  there  is 
not  any  truth  in  it." 

President  Wilson,  when  he  addressed  Congress,  at 
the  opening  of  the  session  in  December,  1914,  de- 
precated any  attempt  to  convert  this  country  into  an 
"armed  camp."  A  year  Jater,  standing  on  the  same 
spot,  he  launched  the  greatest  army  and  navy  program 
that  was  ever  launched  in  time  of  peace  by  an  Ameri- 
can President. 

The  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Mr.  Daniels,  in  Decem- 
ber, 1914,  was  as  unperturbed  as  the  President  him- 
self. I  condense  two  paragraphs  from  pages  636  and 
637  of  the  report  of  the  hearings  before  the  House 
Committee  on  Naval  Affairs: 


56  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

"SECRETARY  DANIELS. — I  think  when  the  war  is 
over  in  Europe  the  countries  are  going  to  be  so  ex- 
hausted in  their  resources  and  are  going  to  be  so 
burdened  with  debt  that  there  is  going  to  be  a  great 
revulsion  of  feeling  against  war.  I  think  there  is 
going  to  be  such  exhaustion  and  reaction  that  the  peo- 
ple are  going  to  demand  the  cessation  of  this  ever- 
increasing  burdensome  expense  of  war." 

On  page  572  appears  the  following  report  of  the 
Secretary's  testimony  before  the  committee: 

"SECRETARY  DANIELS. — He  [the  President]  abso- 
lutely refuses  to  lose  his  head  merely  because  'some 
among  us  are  nervous  and  excited.'  Even  if  the 
times  are  internationally  out  of  joint,  no  occasion  has 
arisen  with  us  to  plunge  headlong  into  any  frenzied 
policy  or  frantic  action." 

From  page  586,  I  take  the  following : 

"MR.  BUCHANAN. — In  your  opinion,  will  the  pres- 
ent conflict  in  Europe  impair  or  destroy  the  resources 
of  our  possible  opponents  in  such  a  manner  that  it  will 
put  us  in  less  danger  of  having  any  great  conflict? 

"SECRETARY  DANIELS. — I  think  the  war  in  Europe 
is  going  to  exhaust  the  resources  of  the  countries 
engaged  in  it,  and  I  think  there  is  less  likelihood — I 
do  not  think  there  was  much  likelihood  before — of  our 
country  in  the  future  having  any  trouble  with  those 
nations." 

When  Mr.  Daniels  was  asked  his  opinion  as  to 
the  advisability  of  increasing  the  navy,  as  a  result 
of  the  European  War,  more  rapidly  than  the  past  pro- 
gram had  contemplated,  he  replied  (page  581)  : 

"SECRETARY  DANIELS. — I  think  it  would  be  most 
unwise  for  us  to  act  to-day  in  any  particular  as  we 
would  not  have  acted  if  there  were  no  war." 


OUR  REAL  NAVAL  STRENGTH         57 

What  has  happened  during  the  last  year  so  to  alter 
the  minds  of  the  President  and  his  Secretary  of  the 
Navy?  The  Lusitania  has  been  sunk.  The  whole 
policy  of  German  and,  later,  of  Austrian  submarine 
warfare  has  been  put  into  practise.  German  enmity 
has  been  aroused  by  the  sale  of  American  munitions 
of  war  to  the  Allies.  A  certain  amount  of  German 
enmity  has  been  aroused  by  the  alleged  unneutrality 
of  the  United  States  Government.  But  no  one  in 
his  senses  believes  that,  after  the  war  in  Europe  is 
ended,  Germany  will  attack  the  United  States  because 
Americans  did  not  like  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitcmia, 
nor  because  the  American  Government  opposed  the 
manner  in  which  the  Central  Powers  conducted  their 
submarine  campaign,  nor  because  the  Central  powers 
believed  the  United  States  Government  to  be  unneu- 
tral  during  the  European  War.  All  of  these  matters 
are  things  to  snarl  about  during  war,  but  none  of 
them  is  a  thing  about  which  to  start  another  war. 
Yet,  save  one,  they  are  the  only  reasons  that  may  be 
given  for  plunging  into  militarism  through  fear  of 
Germany. 

That  other  reason  is  the  fear  that  Germany,  as  a 
result  of  the  present  war,  will  become  a  world-empire, 
seek  to  establish  colonies  in  South  America,  thus  chal- 
lenging the  Monroe  Doctrine  and  bringing  on  war. 
But  if  this  reason  now  exists,  did  it  not  also  exist 
in  December,  1914,  when  the  President,  in  his  address 
to  Congress,  opposed  the  conversion  of  this  country 
into  an  "armed  camp"  and  his  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
complimented  him  for  not  "losing  his  head  merely  be- 
because  'some  among  us  are  nervous  and  excited' "  ? 
Have  not  the  events  of  the  last  year  tended  rather  to 
decrease  than  to  increase  this  danger  ? 


58  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

The  fear  of  danger  from  this  source  must  be  pred- 
icated upon  some  notion  of  vastly  increased  German 
power,  as  a  result  of  this  war,  together  with  the  desire 
of  the  German  people  that  this  power  shall  be  used 
for  conquest. 

Is  Germany  stronger  than  it  was  four  months  after 
the  beginning  of  the  war  when  the  President  felt  so 
little  fear  from  this  source  that  he  would  not  raise  a 
finger  against  it?  Is  there  more  or  less  reason  than 
there  was  in  December,  1914,  to  expect  that  Germany 
will  win  a  substantial  victory  in  this  war?  Is  there 
more  or  less  reason  than  there  was  in  December,  1914, 
to  believe  that  in  this  war  no  nation  can  win  a  sub- 
stantial victory? 

Does  Secretary  Daniels'  prediction  appear  more  or 
less  prophetic  than  it  did  in  December,  1914,  when 
he  said  that  "when  the  war  is  over  in  Europe  the  coun- 
tries are  going  to  be  so  exhausted  in  their  resources 
and  are  going  to  be  so  burdened  with  debt  that  there 
is  going  to  be  a  great  revulsion  of  feeling  against 
war?" 

What  nation  gives  promise  of  being  fit  as  a  fiddle, 
after  this  war  is  ended,  and  ready  to  start  another? 
What  nation  among  the  belligerents  is  not  already 
"burdened  with  debt"  ? 

Germany  with  six  billions  added,  and  the  war  still 
in  progress,  has  more  than  doubled  its  national 
debt. 

Great  Britain,  with  nine  billions  added,  has  almost 
trebled  its  national  debt. 

France,  which,  before  the  war,  had  the  greatest 
per  capita  national  debt  in  the  world,  has  so  added 
to  her  debt  that  national  bankruptcy  will  stare  her 
in  the  face  at  the  close  of  war. 


OUR  REAL  NAVAL  STRENGTH         59 

Austria-Hungary,  like  Germany,  is  piling  up  an 
enormous  debt.  Russia  and  Italy  are  no  better  off. 

In  short,  what  nation  is  there  among  the  belligerents 
that  has  not  already  amply  qualified  for  admission 
into  the  class  that  Secretary  Daniels,  in  December; 
1914,  intimated  he  would  regard  as  harmless  because 
they  would  be  "so  exhausted  in  their  resources  and  so 
burdened  with  debt"  that  there  would  inevitably  be  a 
degree  of  "exhaustion"  that  would  cause  a  "great  re- 
vulsion of  feeling  against  war"?  Is  there  one  such 
belligerent?  If  so,  which  one? 

It  cannot  be  Germany.  It  should  be  plain  to  the 
blindest  that  none  of  the  nations  involved  can  come 
out  of  this  war  other  than  grievously  wounded,  and 
Germany,  at  least  in  one  sense,  worst  of  all.  Germany 
went  into  this  war  believing  she  would  quickly  emerge 
victorious  and  collect  from  her  fallen  foes  great  in- 
demnities. She  cannot  now  emerge  quickly  victorious. 
The  war  has  lasted  far  too  long.  Nor  is  there  any 
certainty  that  she  will,  in  any  sense,  be  victorious. 
What  is  certain  is  that  Germany  will  collect  not  a 
dollar  from  any  nation  if,  when  general  exhaustion 
shall  end  the  war,  she  shall  be  the  least  exhausted 
and  therefore  the  nominal  victor. 

If  any  indemnity  should  be  paid  by  any  nation, 
it  is  more  likely  that  it-  will  be  paid  by  Germany. 
It  is  not  likely  that  even  Germany  will  pay  one.  It  is 
more  likely  that  the  Allies  will  demand  an  indemnity 
and  then  trade  off  their  demand  for  the  return  of 
any  of  their  territory  that,  at  the  end  of  the  war,  may 
be  in  the  hands  of  the  Central  Powers.  The  Allies 
have  already  let  it  be  known  that  they  will  demand 
an  indemnity  and  that  they  will  use  their  superior 
naval  power  to  prevent  all  German  merchant  ships 


60          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

from  sailing  the  seas  until  the  indemnity  shall  be  paid. 
That  is  not  an  idle  threat  since  England,  if  her  Allies 
should  desert  her,  could  withdraw  her  armies  and, 
with  her  own  navy,  enforce  the  claim  herself.  Ger- 
man statesmen  have  long  known  this.  Since  Decem- 
ber 14,  1915,  all  the  world  has  known  that  such  is 
the  intention  of  the  Allies.  Under  that  date  the 
New  York  Times  printed  the  following  Washington 
despatch : 

"Several  newspapers  have  received  to-night  from 
what  may  be  described  as  a  semi-official  source  an  in- 
timation of  one  argument  the  Allies  expect  to  use  in 
getting  satisfactory  terms  from  the  Teutonic  Em- 
pires once  commissioners  meet  about  the  council  table 
to  discuss  peace.  This  information  confirms  private 
suggestions  that  the  Allies,  in  spite  of  their  recent 
reverses,  mean  to  carry  the  war  to  the  point  where 
they  can  demand  a  large  indemnity  from  Germany 
and  Austria. 

"This  intimation  is  conveyed  in  the  following  state- 
ment : 

"  'One  of  the  main  points  of  the  Allies'  peace  terms 
is  that  on  no  account  will  the  German  mercantile 
marine  flag  be  permitted  to  be  seen  upon  the  high  seas 
until  full  indemnification  has  been  paid.  The  Allies 
have  the  power  to  do  this  and  mean  to  use  it  to  the 
full  extent.'" 

Why  then  should  we  so  greatly  fear  a  nation  that 
we  did  not  at  all  fear  when  there  was  still  a  chance 
that  she  might  win  a  speedy,  smashing  victory?  Do 
we  give  the  Germans  credit  for  no  sense  ?  Was  Secre- 
tary Daniels  wrong  when  he  said,  in  1914,  that  great 
debts  and  great  depletion  of  resources  would  so  ex- 
haust the  belligerents  that  none  of  them  would  soon 


OUR  REAL  NAVAL  STRENGTH         6r 

care  to  fight  again?  Are  we  to  believe  that  Germany, 
having  failed  to  win  a  substantial  victory  with  her 
army,  which  is  strong,  would  be  eager  to  attempt  a 
war  of  conquest  with  her  navy  which  is  relatively 
weak,  against  a  nation  3,000  miles  distant?  Would 
she  be  likely  to  begin  such  a  war  if  that  nation  had 
not  only  a  navy,  at  least  as  strong  as  her  own,  but 
national  wealth  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  billions,  as 
against  Germany's  eighty  billions,  and  a  population 
of  one  hundred  millions,  as  against  Germany's  sixty- 
seven  millions?  Germany  now  has  not  that  much 
population,  nor  that  much  wealth,  since  these  figures 
were  compiled  before  the  war  began. 

Yet  the  identical  newspapers  that  will  not  print  the 
official  statements  of  Admirals  Fletcher  and  Badger 
pertaining  to  the  superiority  of  the  American  Navy 
over  the  German  Navy — these  identical  newspapers 
tell  us  that  fear  is  justly  abroad  in  the  land  and  that 
we  should  make  haste  to  arm.  Secretary  Daniels, 
who  felt  no  alarm  when  Germany  was  stronger,  feels 
much  alarmed  when  Germany  is  much  weaker  and  has 
much  less  reason  for  looking  forward  to  a  favor- 
able ending  of  the  present  war.  He  wants  Congress 
to  appropriate  for  the  navy  this  year  $217,658,173. 
That  is  an  increase  over  the  preceding  year  of  about 
$68,000,000.  And  he  wants  this  pace  kept  up  for 
five  years. 

Do  people  stop  to  think  what  that  means?  It  means 
for  the  navy  during  the  next  five  years  one  billion 
two  hundred  million  dollars.  Do  people  realize  that, 
so  far  as  the  navy  is  concerned,  this  is  out-Germany- 
ing  Germany  ?  Germany,  during  the  five  years  preced- 
ing the  outbreak  of  the  present  war,  spent  on  her  navy 
$546,454,803.  Mr.  Wilson  wants  to  spend  almost 


62  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

twice  as  much  during  the  next  five  years  as  Germany 
spent  during  the  five  years  in  which  she  was  extending 
herself  to  the  uttermost  to  get  within  striking  distance 
of  the  size  of  the  British  Navy.  Nor  should  it  be  for- 
gotten that  during  the  five  years  while  Germany  was 
pouring  millions  into  her  navy,  we  poured  out  more 
millions  than  she  did.  Our  appropriations  for  the 
same  period  were  $653,869,371.  We  are  not  a  nation 
that,  so  far  as  a  navy  is  concerned,  are  just  starting. 
We  are  a  nation  that,  for  years,  have  spent  more 
money  on  our  fleet  than  has  any  other  nation  save 
Great  Britain.  For  the  convenience  of  those  who  may 
be  interested,  I  append  the  naval  appropriations  of 
the  principal  powers  from  1900  to  1914,  inclusive 
(see  page  63). 

And,  in  the  face  of  these  figures,  Mr.  Wilson  sub- 
mits a  naval  building  program  for  the  next  five  years 
that,  if  enacted,  would,  as  Representative  Claude  Kit- 
chin  of  North  Carolina  succinctly  put  it,  "at  one 
bound,  increase  our  already  immense  naval  expendi- 
ture by  more  than  our  total  increase  during  the  last 
fourteen  years,  and  by  more  than  the  total  German 
naval  increase  during  the  five  years  preceding  the 
European  War,  and  by  more  than  the  combined  naval 
increase  of  all  the  nations  of  the  world  in  any  one  year 
in  their  history!" 

Mr.  Garrison,  late  Secretary  of  War,  wanted  an 
army  of  541,000  regulars  and  "Continentals"  at  an 
annual  cost  of  $182,234,559 — or  a  mere  matter,  dur- 
ing the  next  five  years,  of  $911,172,795 ! 

The  War  College  Division  of  the  General  Staff  of 
the  Army  do  not  believe  this  goes  far  enough.  These 
affable  gentlemen  would  have  an  army  of  one  million 
men,  equally  divided  into  regulars  and  "Continentals." 


OUR  REAL  NAVAL  STRENGTH 


NAVAL  APPROPRIATIONS  OF  THE  PRINCIPAL  POWERS  FROM  1900  TO  1914,  INCLUSIVE 


Great  Britain, 

Fiscal  year        Apr.  i-Mar.  31 
1900-1 $145,792,850 


150,569,190 
150,679.328 
173.548,058 
179.138,049 
161,117,947 
1906-7 152,954,342 


1901-2. 
1902-3. 
1903-4- 
1904-5. 
1905-6. 


1907-8. 

1008-9. 

1900-10. 

1910-11. 

1911-12. 


151,880,617 
156,401,161 
181,936,341 
202,056,258 
211,596,296 

1912-13 224,443,296 

1913-14 237,530,459 

1914-15 260,714,275 


United  States, 
July  i-June  30 

$61.721,695 
68,438,301 
82,977,641 
104,126,192 
116,655,826 
109,725,059 
98,392,144 
117,353,474 
120,421,579 
122,247,365 
111,791,980 
133.559,071 
129,787.233 
136,858,301 
141,872,786 


Germany, 
April  to  March 

$37,173,074 

46,315,800 

48,818,700 

50,544,000 

49,110,300 

54,918,000 

58,344.300 

69,133,500 

80,737,626 

95,047,820 

103,302,773 

107,178,480 

109,989,096 

112,091,125 

113.993.329 


France, 
Jan.  to  Dec. 
$72,683,180 
67,079,011 
59.2I7.5S8 
59,740,222 
60,178,623 
61,565,779 
59,514,296 
60,685,813 
62,194,916 
64.899.589 
74,102,439 
80,371,109 
81,692,832 
90,164,625 
123,828,872 


Russia, 

Fiscal  year          Jan.  to  Dec. 
1900-1 $42,101,212 


IOOI-2. 

1002-3. 

1003-4- - 

1904-5-- 

1905-6. . 

1906-7.. 

1007-8.. 

1908-9 . . 

1900-10. 

1910-11. 

1911-12. 

1912-13. 

1913-14- 

1914-15- 


45,488,462 
50,769.465 
60,018,895 
58,076,543 
60,228,444 
60,703,557 
43,012,166 
49,682,482 
58,059,040 
46,520,465 
56,680,915 
82,019,633 
117,508,657 
128,954.733 


Italy, 

July  i-June  30 
$23,829,206 
23.875,532 
23,522,400 
23,522,400 
24,300,000 
24,494.400 
25,865,668 
27,516,454 
30.453,697 
31,812,885 
40,595.204 
40,780,987 
41,893,420 
49,550,147 
56,920,440 


Japan 
riltoM 


April  to  March 


Total 


$21,373.954 
17.654.528 
17.553.279 
10,018,024 
11,378,202 
30,072,061 
35,124,346 
39,347,332 
35,005,719 
36,889,158 
42,944,329 
46,510,216 
48,105,152 
69,111,653 


$423,140,250 
433,639,620 
489,053,046 
497,477.365 
483,427.831 
485,846,368 
504,706,370 
539.238,793 
589.008,759 
615,258,277 
673.111,187 
716,335.726 
791,808,466 
895,396,088 


We  smile  at  the  War  College  gentlemen  now — or  at 
any  rate,  we  do  if  we  know  no  better.  What  they  are 
advocating  now  is  but  the  natural  sequence  of  what 
Mr.  Garrison  and  his  kind  are  advocating  now.  The 
appetite  for  arms  is  progressive. 

If  Congress  should  enact  the  Wilson  defense  pro- 
gram it  would  at  once  be  confronted  with  two  prob- 
lems— how  to  get  the  money  to  pay  the  bills  and  how 
to  get  the  soldiers  to  make  the  army. 

Mr.  Garrison  has  thought  of  the  soldier  part  of  it. 
He  knows  how  much  advertising  the  government  has 
had  to  do  to  keep  intact  an  army  of  100,000  men.  And 
there  is  where  Conscription  raises  its  ugly  head.  Mr. 


64  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

Garrison  is  looking  forward  to  the  necessity  of  con- 
scription, in  time  of  peace,  to  raise  the  army  for 
which  he  has  asked. 

I  quote  the  following  paragraph  from  his  annual 
report : 

"If  the  nation  requires  certain  service  and  offers  the 
most  favorable  opportunity  for  the  citizens  to  furnish 
such  service,  and,  notwithstanding  that  it  cannot  se- 
cure such  service,  it  must  then  resort  to  some  method 
of  compelling  the  service." 

Here  is  visible  proof  of  the  Socialist  contention  that 
this  nation  is  ruled,  not  by  its  people,  but  by  the 
capitalist  class.  We  need  not  argue  the  point — there 
are  the  animal's  claws.  What  doctrine  more  mon- 
strous than  that  set  forth  by  Mr.  Garrison  that  the 
nation  and  its  citizens  are  things  apart? 

What  power  is  it  in  "the  nation"  that  gives  it, 
not  only  the  right  to  demand  but  to  take  services 
that  "the  citizens"  are  unwilling  to  give?  If  the 
citizens  of  the  United  States  do  not  constitute  the 
nation,  pray  who  and  what  do  constitute  it?  Whence 
comes  the  power  to  say  that  if  "the  citizens"  should 
decide  even  to  welcome  an  invader,  they  would  not 
have  the  right  to  do  so? 

Mr.  Garrison,  so  far  as  >his  own  purposes  are 
concerned,  went  too  far.  For  a  brief  moment  he 
threw  a  beam  of  light  on  the  ruling  class  that  is 
administering  the  government  of  this  nation.  He  and 
his  class  doubtless  want  a  larger  army,  but  he  should 
be  more  discreet.  There  is  a  way  of  phrasing  things 
to  conceal  facts  and  Mr.  Garrison  should  know  it. 

Nor  was  the  Secretary  of  War  alone  in  hinting  at 
the  necessity  of  conscription  if  the  Wilson  defense 
plan  should  become  effective.  The  patriotic  Union 


65 

League  Club  of  New  York,  which  is  largely  composed 
of  antiquated  millionaires  and  men  of  lesser  wealth, 
was  perhaps  the  first  to  adopt,  by  unanimous  vote, 
a  resolution  urging  the  government  to  compel  every 
able-bodied  citizen  of  military  age  to  serve  in  the  army 
"or  contribute  financially"  to  its  support.  No  great 
gift  of  imagination  seems  necessary  to  frame  an  ac- 
curate forecast  as  to  whether  the  Union  League  gentle- 
men would  serve  in  person,  or  "contribute  financially" 
by  hiring  substitutes. 

The  New  York  Evening  Mail,  the  editor  of  which 
is  Mr.  S.  S.  McClure  of  former  magazine  fame,  is 
also  in  favor  of  conscription.  After  commending 
the  Garrison  plan  and  asking  how  the  soldiers  were 
to  be  obtained,  it  continues : 

"By  the  present  voluntary  system  of  enlistment? 
Utterly  impossible.  The  excellent  project  of  national 
defense,  fully  warranted  by  the  uncertainties  and 
hidden  menaces  of  the  international  situation,  can- 
not begin  to  be  put  into  effect  without  the  establish- 
ment of  the  principle  of  obligatory  service,  imposed 
by  the  inexorable  requirements  of  the  most  vital  in- 
terests of  the  country." 

Conscription  has  already  raised  its  head  in  Con- 
gress, where  on  December  13,  1915,  Senator  Cham- 
berlain, Chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Mili- 
tary Affairs,  introduced  a  bill  under  the  terms  of 
which,  if  it  should  become  a  law,  compulsory  service, 
even  in  time  of  peace,  would  begin  at  the  age  of  12 
and  continue  until  the  age  of  23. 

The  little  boys  would  be  required  to  train  only  a  few 
hours  each  year  and  the  older  boys  not  much  longer. 
But  it  is  the  entering  wedge  toward  the  same  sort  of 
compulsory  military  service  that,  for  a  hundred  years, 


66  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

has  spared  no  boy  in  Europe  except  the  boys  of  Eng- 
land. Raise  the  Wilson  army  and  conscription  will 
follow  as  a  matter  of  course.  This  will  then  be  the 
same  kind  of  a  land  as  those  from  which  millions 
of  Europeans  have  fled  to  come  to  this  country.  They 
knew  what  they  were  fleeing  from  and  why.  We  shall 
better  understand  why  they  fled  if  we  let  conscrip- 
tion become  fastened  upon  us. 

Granted  that  enough  conscripts  can  be  drafted  to 
make  a  huge  army,  we  shall  still  be  confronted  with 
the  problem  of  how  to  raise  enough  money  to  sup- 
port the  army  and  the  navy.  This  money  can  come 
from  but  one  source — the  working  class;  the  farmers, 
mechanics,  laborers  and  others  who  constitute  the 
productive  part  of  the  community.  The  working  class 
produce  the  wealth  with  which  to  pay  all  the  taxes  that 
are  paid.  If  the  Wilson  defense  plan  should  be  put 
into  effect,  it  would  be  necessary  to  impose  more 
taxes.  Of  course,  I  do  not  mean  taxes  on  buildings 
and  land. 

The  United  States  Government  never  gets  a  cent 
that  is  raised  by  taxes  on  buildings  and  land.  The 
United  States  Government  gets  its  money  from  cus- 
toms receipts,  internal  revenue  taxes  on  tobacco, 
whisky,  etc.,  taxes  laid  upon  incomes,  and  now,  to 
some  extent,  from  special  taxes  that  were  imposed 
as  a  result  of  the  loss  of  revenue  caused  by  the 
shrinkage  of  imports  due  to  the  European  War. 

The  government  is  barely  keeping  its  head  above 
water  without  a  larger  army  and  a  larger  navy  to 
create  and  maintain.  What  the  taxes  would  be  in  ten 
or  twenty  years,  nobody  can  tell.  The  people  of 
Europe  know  more  about  such  things  than  we  do. 

If  these  be  the  things  that  the  American  people 


OUR  REAL  NAVAL  STRENGTH         67 

want,  Mr.  Wilson  and  his  party — with  Republican  as- 
sistance— will  be  pleased  to  serve  them. 

Compulsory  military  service  right  away. 

Higher  cost  of  living  right  away. 

Possibly  a  war  in  a  few  years. 

Yet  we  are  assured  by  Hiram  Maxim,  among  other 
munitions  patriots,  that  we  should  "prepare."  Every 
munitions  patriot  is  purely  unselfish  in  his  advocacy 
of  greater  armaments.  But  wait  a  moment.  A  des- 
patch from  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  to  the  New  York  World: 

"PREPAREDNESS  MEN  PREPARE  TO  RESIGN. 
"ADVERTISEMENTS  OF  $10,000,000  MUNITIONS  COR- 
PORATION SHOCKS  ST.  Louis. 
(Special  to  The  World.) 

"ST.  Louis. — Many  members  have  resigned  and 
others  are  threatening  to  resign  from  the  Committee 
of  One  Hundred  appointed  by  Mayor  Kiel  to  urge 
the  preparedness  program  upon  Congress.  This  ac- 
tion resulted  from  advertisements  in  St.  Louis  news- 
papers this  morning  of  a  $10,000,000  Maxim  Muni- 
tions Corporation  offering  stock  for  sale  at  $10  a 
share.  Hudson  Maxim  appeared  two  days  ago  be- 
fore the  Business  Men's  League  to  urge  support  of 
the  national  defense  program. 

"  That's  a  pretty  swift  beginning/  said  former 
Solicitor  General  of  the  United  States  Frederick  W. 
Lehmann  in  announcing  his  refusal  to  serve  on  the 
committee. 

"  'One  cannot  help  suspecting  an  ulterior  motive,' 
said  Judge  H.  S.  Canfield  in  declining  to  be  a  com- 
mittee-man. 

"  'If  the  activities  of  the  National  Security 
League,  at  the  instance  of  which  the  committee  was 


68  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

appointed,  the  appearance  of  Mr.  Maxim  and  the 
promulgation  of  the  advertisements  can  be  connected, 
it  is  treasonable/  said  John  H.  Gundlach,  former 
President  of  the  City  Council  and  member  of  the  com- 
mittee." 

Nevertheless,  the  munitions  patriots  are  probably 
entirely  unselfish  in  their  advice  to  prepare.  The  only 
reason  they  do  not  advocate  the  manufacture  of  guns, 
ammunition  and  ships  by  the  government  is  because 
they  happened  to  miss  the  paragraph  in  Secretary 
Daniels'  report  for  1914  in  which  he  said  it  had  been 
demonstrated  that  the  government  could  make  any- 
thing "from  a  dreadnought  to  a  gallon  of  paint," 
for  less  than  it  could  buy  the  same  article  from  private 
interests. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   POLITICS   OF   "PREPAREDNESS" 

TT^ORMER  Secretary  of  War  Garrison,  speaking  at 
•*•  a  banquet  attended  by  a  thousand  bankers  in 
New  York  on  January  17,  1916,  said : 

"The  newspapers  of  the  country,  either  voicing 
public  opinion  or  leading  it,  have  been  insistent  for 
months  in  their  news  articles  and  in  their  editorials 
that  a  wise,  sensible  military  policy  is  essential  for  the 
nation.  This  public  opinion  was  formulated  by  the 
President,  as  the  spokesman  of  the  people,  and  a  policy 
embracing  the  essential  principles  of  national  defense 
was  by  him  proposed  to  Congress." 

The  first  part  of  this  statement,  so  far  at  least  as  it 
relates  to  the  responsibility  of  the  press  for  creating 
fear  in  this  country,  is  true.  I  may  be  able  to  throw  a 
little  light  on  the  part  that  relates  to  President  Wilson's 
share  in  the  matter. 

At  a  meeting  held  in  Washington  in  January,  1916, 
of  the  Anti-Preparedness  Committee,  of  which  I  was 
a  member,  Mr.  Oswald  Garrison  Villard,  publisher  of 
the  New  York  Evening  Post  and  grandson  of  William 
Lloyd  Garrison,  made  the  following  statement: 

"Colonel  House  told  me  that  the  Wilson  Defense 
Program  was  put  up  to  be  knocked  down." 

The  Colonel  House  to  whom  Mr.  Villard  referred 
is  Colonel  E.  M.  House,  closest  friend  of  the  Presi- 
dent. Mr.  Villard  is  the  only  New  York  newspaper 

69 


?o          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

editor  who  is  opposing  preparedness.  He  is  not  a 
member  of  the  Anti-Preparedness  Committee,  but  he 
sometimes  meets  with  it. 

The  people  of  this  country  are  entitled  to  know  all 
of  the  facts  back  of  the  effort  to  stampede  the  nation 
into  militarism.  If  the  President,  in  advocating  "pre- 
paredness," is  violating  his  conscience  to  play  politics, 
the  people  have  a  right  to  know  the  truth. 

American  history  contains  no  political  chapter 
more  disgraceful  than  that  which  American  politicians 
are  now  writing  on  the  subject  of  "preparedness." 
The  question  of  whether  we  are  to  depart  from  our 
traditions  and  assume  the  crushing  burdens  of  great 
military  establishments  is  one  that  might  well  have 
smothered  in  each  American  every  selfish  longing, 
every  unworthy  motive,  bearing  on  the  subject.  So 
far  as  some  of  our  politicians  and  business  men  are  con- 
cerned, precisely  the  opposite  has  taken  place.  Selfish- 
ness has  run  and  is  running  riot.  Though  these 
gentlemen  are  playing  with  fire  around  a  powder 
magazine,  they  are  so  intent  upon  the  achievement  of 
their  own  little  ambitions  that  they  seem  utterly  un- 
mindful of  the  great,  solemn  national  interests  that 
are  involved — interests  that  touch  not  only  the  living 
but  generations  of  the  unborn. 

More  than  any  other  one  man,  Theodore  Roosevelt 
is  responsible  for  the  wave  of  fear,  now  happily 
passing,  that  swept  over  the  country.  He  is  the  vic- 
tim— and  so  long  as  he  lives  he  will  doubtless  continue 
to  be  the  victim — of  a  consuming  desire  to  get  back 
to  and  remain  in  the  White  House.  He  showed  these 
symptoms  soon  after  he  returned  from  Africa.  He 
put  forth  his  greatest  efforts  to  get  the  Republican 
nomination  in  1912.  When  he  failed  he  went  deliber- 


POLITICS  OF  "PREPAREDNESS"        71 

ately  about  it  to  wreck  his  party — and  succeeded. 
From  the  moment  that  Mr.  Wilson  entered  the  White 
House  he  did  nothing  to  the  satisfaction  of  Mr.  Roose- 
velt. For  many  long  months  he  searched  diligently, 
yet  without  much  success,  for  an  issue  large  enough 
so  that  he  could  lock  horns  with  the  President  to  the 
end  that  he  might  politically  destroy  him. 

And  then  came  the  great  war.  Mr.  Wilson  has 
done  nothing  since  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  could  approve. 
With  fine  frenzy  he  lashed  the  President  because  he 
did  not  advocate  a  declaration  of  war  against  Ger- 
many because  of  the  invasion  of  Belgium.  Mr.  Roose- 
velt, of  course,  knows  as  well  as  anybody  that  even 
England  did  not  go  to  war  because  of  Belgium,  how- 
ever much  she  may  have  officially  pretended  to  do  so. 
Yet  what  he  doubtless  considered  his  political  necessi- 
ties caused  him,  almost  at  the  beginning,  to  decry  Mr. 
Wilson  because  he  did  not  do  his  best  to  plunge  this 
country  into  the  European  War. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  did  not  immediately  advocate  "pre- 
paredness" nor  criticize  Mr.  Wilson  because  he  did 
not  advocate.  When  "prepared"  Europe  broke  into 
war-flame  it  seemed  as  if  no  sane  man  ever  again 
could  advocate  tremendous  preparation  for  war  as  the 
best  means  of  keeping  the  peace.  Everywhere  it  was 
felt  that  the  great  calamity  of  the  European  War 
must  lead  at  least  to  this  much  good — that  it  would 
forever  put  a  stop  to  the  insanity  of  endless  competi- 
tion in  armaments. 

Such  views  naturally  gave  alarm  to  the  interests 
that,  for  twenty  years,  had  been  fattening  upon  armor 
plate  contracts  and  other  orders  related  to  the  business 
of  war.  These  gentlemen,  as  we  now  know,  are  not 
entirely  without  resources.  They  have  in  the  aggre- 


72  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

gate,  not  only  great  wealth,  but  through  banking  and 
business  connections,  they  have  the  power  to  influence 
a  great  deal  of  wealth  that  they  do  not  own.  They 
have  power  over  congressmen.  They  have  power  over 
newspapers.  And  they  are  not  unaware  of  the  fact 
that  the  strongest  emotion  that  moves  human  beings  is 
fear. 

Steps  were  taken  to  spread  fear  throughout  the  land. 
Eminent  admirals  and  generals  were  interviewed. 
Was  there  ever  an  eminent  admiral  or  general  who 
believed  the  American  army  and  the  American  navy 
were  large  enough?  Admirals  and  generals  who 
believe  this  country  could  be  shot  up  before  breakfast 
by  almost  any  ambitious  power  are  so  numerous  as  to 
be  a  nuisance.  Grant  their  premises  and  we  must 
accept  their  conclusions.  There  is  no  doubt  that  this 
country  can  be  invaded.  There  is  no  doubt  that  any 
country  can  be  invaded.  Enough  men  and  enough  guns 
can  penetrate  England,  or  Germany,  or  France,  or 
the  United  States.  The  point  these  gentlemen  always 
overlook  is  that  none  of  the  nations  that  have  guns 
enough  to  be  in  our  class  has  ever  deemed  it  expedient 
to  try  to  invade  America  with  any  force  that  it  could 
spare  from  its  own  shores.  Our  timid  admirals  and 
generals  never  seem  to  consider  that  European  enmities 
are  our  best  protection  from  European  attack,  since 
no  European  nation  would  dare  to  leave  its  own  coasts 
unguarded  to  bring  its  entire  force  against  us.  Yet, 
class-conscious  admirals  and  generals  that  they  are, 
they  are  always  willing  to  tell  anybody  who  may  in- 
quire that  we  are  in  a  frightful  state  of  unpreparedness 
and  much  need  more  ships  and  more  soldiers. 

The  armament  gentlemen,  some  of  whom  modestly 
confess  that  they  have  a  little  armament  to  sell,  did 


POLITICS  OF  "PREPAREDNESS"        73 

their  utmost  to  create  fear  by  spreading  these  ideas 
around.  Naturally  they  turned  to  the  newspapers  as 
the  best  means  of  carrying  on  their  propaganda.  No 
difficulty  was  encountered  in  obtaining  extensive 
editorial  support.  Caesar's  wife  edits  no  newspapers 
in  the  great  metropolitan  districts.  Every  editor  has  a 
publisher  and  every  publisher  has  a  banker.  The  pub- 
lisher knows  who  discounts  his  notes — and  who  has 
the  power  to  refuse  to  renew  them.  The  banker  who 
is  financing  munitions  interests,  and  profiting  thereby, 
can  pull  any  one  of  many  strings  to  make  the  editorial 
typewriter  click  out  his  will. 

Moreover,  the  publisher  of  a  great  newspaper  in  a 
great  city  is  usually  part  and  parcel  of  the  industrial 
and  financial  group  who  would  have  this  nation  armed 
mightily  so  that  it  might  trade  tremendously.  These 
gentlemen  see  in  a  great  navy  an  excellent  means  with 
which  to  pry  open  foreign  markets.  It  matters  not 
to  them  that  the  American  working  class  should  be 
permitted  to  consume  its  own  products.  It  matters  not 
to  these  gentlemen  that  the  American  working  class, 
if  it  were  paid  sufficient  wages,  would  be  glad  to  con- 
sume its  own  products.  These  determined  men  of 
finance  and  industry  are  intent  only  upon  finding 
foreign  markets  for  what  they  have  filched  at  home. 
And  they  have  the  unspeakable  impudence  to  ask  the 
American  working  class,  in  the  name  of  "patriotism," 
to  provide  a  navy  with  which  to  complete  the  theft 
of  their  own  products  and,  in  the  event  of  war  as  to 
markets,  to  give  up  their  lives  to  enable  their  masters 
to  get  their  money  for  their  stolen  goods. 

The  newspapers,  aided  mightily  by  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
spread  fear  abroad  throughout  the  land.  The  moment 
fear  was  felt  the  seed  of  "preparedness"  was  sown. 


74  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

It  looked  for  a  while  as  if  the  country  were  in  a  fair 
way  to  go  mad.  And  it  was  only  when  it  seemed  as 
if  the  country  were  about  to  become  of  one  mind  as  to 
the  necessity  of  great  military  preparations  that  Mr. 
Wilson,  the  politician,  not  knowing  which  way  the 
cat  might  jump,  stultified  his  own  brave  words  of 
December,  1914,  and  put  up  a  defense  program  "to 
be  knocked  down." 

Mr.  Wilson  is  an  exceedingly  adroit  politician.  I 
do  not  know  that  his  character  can  be  better  summed 
up  than  it  was  by  a  New  York  man  who  attended 
Princeton  University  when  Mr.  Wilson  was  its  presi- 
dent. "I  would  not  call  Mr.  Wilson  crooked,"  said 
he,  "but  he  is  artful."  "Artful"  is  the  word.  Mr. 
Wilson  is  the  sort  of  gentleman  who,  when  he  chooses 
to  do  so,  seeps  through  a  situation  instead  of  cutting 
it  with  a  knife.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  his 
heart  he  is  opposed  to  the  program  he  has  proposed. 
The  reasoning  that  he  employed  in  his  December,  1914, 
message  shows  it.  Col.  House's  statement  to  Mr. 
Villard  proves  it.  But  Mr.  Wilson,  desiring  a  second 
term,  and  being  uncertain  as  to  the  extent  of  the  "pre- 
paredness" mania,  felt  it  necessary  to  put  himself  in 
a  position  to  swim  with  the  tide — if  there  were  a  tide. 

Yet  in  the  message  to  Congress  in  which  he  launched 
his  defense  program  he  contrived  innocently  to  men- 
tion that  our  finances  were  already  in  a  bad  way,  and 
that  if  the  defense  program  were  to  be  adopted,  it 
would  be  necessary,  each  year,  to  raise  some  additional 
hundreds  of  millions  by  taxation,  and  to  suggest  that 
these  sums  might  be  raised  by  taxing,  among  other 
things,  gasoline  and  steel.  He  made  these  suggestions 
rather  lightly,  but  he  must  have  known  that  they  would 
raise  the  howls  in  the  automobile  and  steel  industries 


POLITICS  OF  "PREPAREDNESS"        75 

that  they  did  raise.  In  this  "artful"  manner  Mr.  Wil- 
son succeeded,  not  only  in  bringing  to  the  attention 
of  the  whole  country  what  would  be  the  cost  of  "pre- 
paredness," but  he  set  different  groups  of  manufac- 
turers to  quarreling  as  to  which  industries  should  bear 
the  bulk  of  the  burden. 

Mr.  Wilson's  "artfulness"  was  still  further  displayed 
in  his  whole-hearted  endorsement  of  Secretary  Gar- 
rison's proposed  Continental  Army.  On  the  face  of  it 
this  endorsement  seemed  very  generous.  It  was  ample, 
and  it  was  doubtless  uttered  to  the  accompaniment 
of  that  bland  smile  of  which  the  President  is  peculiarly 
the  master.  But  the  practical  value  of  the  endorsement 
became  apparent  a  little  later  when  the  question  of 
conscription  came  to  the  fore.  Mr.  Garrison's  Con- 
tinental Army  could  not  possibly  be  raised  without 
conscription — even  its  friends  admitted  that.  And  Mr. 
Wilson,  when  the  moment  came,  permitted  a  member 
of  Congress  to  announce  in  the  House  that  in  no  cir- 
cumstances would  the  President  favor  conscription.  In 
other  words,  the  President's  darling  secretary  of  war 
had  full  permission  to  swim,  the  only  condition  being 
that  he  go  not  near  the  water. 

It  may  seem  as  if  an  effort  is  being  made  to  picture 
the  President  as  another  Machiavelli — somewhat  of 
an  improvement,  perhaps,  over  the  original,  but  still 
of  the  same  kind.  Such  an  inference  would  be  ground- 
less. No  effort  is  being  made.  The  writer  is  but  a 
mere  relator  of  events  in  their  chronological  order. 
What  these  events  may  show  the  President  to  be  is 
for  the  consideration  of  the  reader,  rather  than  of  the 
writer.  Consider,  for  instance,  what  the  President 
was  doing  when  the  "preparedness"  wave  was  at  its 
height — and  for  some  time  afterward.  He  was  doing 


76          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

nothing.  Munitions  patriots  were  fuming.  Bankers 
were  scissoring  off  maple  toothpicks  with  their  teeth. 
The  New  York  Times,  a  faithful  munitions  organ,  was 
editorially  demanding  that  the  defense  bills  "Must 
Come  to  a  Vote  at  Once." 

The  carefully  manufactured  newspaper  wave  of  fear 
was  even  beginning  a  little  to  recede — and  still  no 
word  came  from  the  White  House.  The  Washington 
correspondent  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  early  in 
January,  sent  a  despatch  to  his  newspaper  expressing 
the  astonishment  of  the  great  interests  that  the  Presi- 
dent was  doing  nothing.  They  could  not  understand 
how  a  President  who  had  been  so  energetic  in  pushing 
some  of  his  other  measures  through  Congress  could  be 
so  apathetic  as  to  "his"  most  important  measure — - 
the  defense  program.  Only  the  New  York  Tribune  did 
not  put  any  quotation  marks  around  the  word  "his." 
The  President's  loyalty  to  "his"  own  measures  was 
not  questioned.  The  Tribune  seemed  only  to  feel  that 
he  had  gone  to  sleep.  As  if  the  President  ever  slept 
except  in  bed! 

Mr.  Wilson  permitted  this  situation  to  continue, 
without  a  sign  that  it  would  ever  end,  until  the  latter 
part  of  January.  By  that  time  the  "preparedness" 
wave  had  tremendously  ebbed,  leaving  long  dirty 
marks  to  indicate  what  had  been  its  higher  levels. 
Everybody  admitted  that  the  Garrison  army  idea  was 
dead  beyond  resurrection.  With  a  Democratic  major- 
ity in  the  House  of  only  twenty-three,  more  than 
eighty  Democrats  were  known  to  be  opposed  to  the  de- 
fense measures — and  more  were  seeing  the  light  every 
day.  The  Republicans,  while  known  to  be  willing  to 
supply  the  votes  to  pass  the  bills,  were  also  known  to 
be  unwilling  to  incur  the  odium  that  was  sure  to  be 


POLITICS  OF  "PREPAREDNESS"        77 

attached  to  the  party  that  might  make  possible  the 
enactment  of  the  necessary  revenue  measures.  The 
"preparedness"  advocates,  with  defeat  staring  them  in 
the  face,  were  freely  fighting  among  themselves.  Then 
and  then  only  did  Mr.  Wilson  cause  it  to  be  announced 
that  on  January  27  he  would  speak  in  New  York, 
and  that  in  February  he  would  speak  in  several  cities 
on  measures  that  he  favored,  among  which,  of  course, 
would  be  the  "preparedness"  bills.  After  the  horse 
was  stolen  he  consented  to  lock  the  barn ! 

The  real  history  of  these  momentous  days  will  never 
be  written.  Whatever  may  happen,  the  history  that 
will  be  written  will  judge  Mr.  Wilson  leniently.  Even 
if  a  miracle  should  happen  and,  turning  to  militarism, 
we  should  invite  and,  eventually,  get  war,  still  the  his- 
torian would  say  that  in  proposing  great  additions 
to  our  military  establishments,  Mr.  Wilson  did  no  more 
than  express  the  country's  desires,  which,  in  a  democ- 
racy, a  President  should  always  do.  History  would 
take  no  note  of  how  the  desires  were  manufactured. 
It  would  merely  record  the  fact  (if  it  should  become 
a  fact)  that  they  existed.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the 
country,  recoiling  from  militarism,  as  it  certainly  is, 
should  cause  the  defense  measures  to  be  defeated,  his- 
tory, recalling  the  President's  defense  measures,  would 
content  itself  with  the  observation  that  he  placed  the 
question  before  the  country  that  it  might  answer  it  as 
it  saw  fit. 

We  who  are  now  living  are  not,  however,  dependent 
upon  history  either  for  our  facts  or  for  our  opinions. 
Of  course,  results  are,  in  a  large  sense,  what  we  are 
after,  and  if  Mr.  Wilson  by  putting  up  a  defense  pro- 
gram "to  be  knocked  down"  shall  contribute  to  the 
defeat  of  the  militarists,  the  tendency  will  be  to  rejoice 


78          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

in  the  end  rather  than  too  closely  to  scrutinize  the 
means  by  which  it  was  brought  about.  That  is  the 
superficial,  generous  way  in  which  the  American  people 
invariably  pass  judgment.  Yet,  to  those  who  see 
more  deeply  into  things,  the  fact  is  as  plain  as  a  pike- 
staff that,  as  to  this  exceedingly  perilous  matter,  Mr. 
Wilson  has  been  playing  politics  for  a  selfish  purpose. 

If  he  actually  believed  the  country  needed  the  great 
additions  to  armament  that  he  proposed,  he  should 
have  put  his  shoulder  behind  the  measures  that  were 
drawn  to  bring  them  about  and  pushed  with  every 
ounce  of  his  weight. 

If  he  believed  the  country  should  not  depart  from  all 
its  traditions  by  converting  itself  into  an  "armed 
camp,"  he  should  not  have  contented  himself  by  put- 
ting up  a  program  "to  be  knocked  down." 

When  Mr.  Wilson  proclaimed  his  program  the 
question  of  "preparedness"  was  balancing  in  the  scale, 
with  the  chances  in  favor  of  the  scale  settling  on  the 
side  of  militarism.  The  country  did  not  know  the 
President  was  insincere.  A  breath  might  have  deter- 
mined the  issue.  Fortunately,  the  margin  of  safety 
appears  to  have  been  large  enough  so  that  Mr.  Wilson's 
breath  of  selfishness  did  no  harm.  Mr.  Wilson  could 
not  have  known  how  wide  was  that  margin  of  safety, 
yet  for  a  purely  selfish  purpose  he  played  on  it  with 
the  most  reckless  abandon.  Posterity  may  forget 
and  forgive  this.  It  will  be  more  difficult  for  those 
of  the  present  generation  who  know  what  he  has 
done. 

But  while  there  may  be  apologists  for  what  may  be 
considered  the  President's  "artfulness,"  there  can  be 
no  apologists  for  the  shameful  part  played  by  some 
of  the  great  metropolitan  newspapers  in  turning  over 


POLITICS  OF  "PREPAREDNESS"        79 

their  properties  to  the  munitions  patriots.  They  know 
they  are  engaged  in  a  crooked  game.  They  know, 
because  they  know  what  they  are  printing  and  what 
they  are  excluding.  They  know  what  they  are  put- 
ting big  headlines  on,  and  what  they  are  putting 
little  headlines  on.  Any  unknown  gentleman  who 
returns  from  Europe  with  a  superheated  opinion  that 
this  country  should  fly  to  arms  can  get  ample  space 
and  good  headlines.  Any  one  who  believes  otherwise 
cannot  get  much  of  anything.  Most  of  the  opinion 
adverse  to  "preparedness"  is  suppressed,  and  the  little 
that  is  permitted  to  get  into  print  is  put  on  back  pages 
under  small  headlines.  I  am  speaking,  of  course,  only 
of  the  New  York  newspapers,  who  constitute  the  center 
of  the  "preparedness"  propaganda.  These  statements 
are  true  of  all  the  New  York  newspapers  except  the 
Evening  Post,  a  newspaper  of  high  character  but  small 
circulation.  The  Post  has  fought  splendidly  against 
the  whole  "preparedness"  program.  Many  newspapers 
in  smaller  cities  have  done  the  same. 

As  to  the  suppression  of  news  adverse  to  "prepared- 
ness," I  was  sitting  in  one  of  the  galleries  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  on  January  10,  1916,  listen- 
ing to  a  speech  by  Judge  Shackleford  of  Missouri 
against  the  exportation  of  ammunition.  Near  the 
close  of  his  address  Mr.  Focht,  a  Republican  of  Penn- 
sylvania, interrupted.  To  quote  from  the  Congres- 
sional Record  of  the  same  date : 

"MR.  FOCHT:  The  gentleman  is  opposed  to  any 
foreign  invasion  of  this  country,  and  that  our  defense 
should  be  amply  prepared  for  it. 

"Now,  I  want  to  call  attention  and  ask  the  gentleman 
to  amplify  some  portion  of  his  generally  splendid 
address,  and  that  is  in  regard  to  the  finances  of  Europe. 


80          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

I  think  the  gentleman  recalls  that  Napoleon  said,  'Give 
me  three  things  and  I  will  have  the  universe  at  my  feet/ 
and  those  things  were  'money,  money,  money!'  Now, 
I  understand  that  Europe  is  bankrupt,  that  the  rest  of 
the  allies  are  on  the  pay  roll  of  Great  Britain,  and 
that  Great  Britain  is  coming  here  borrowing  on  her 
bonds  and  securities;  and  since  money  constitutes  the 
sinews  of  war,  how  are  they  going  to  prosecute  any 
war  against  us  while  they  are  financially  broke? 
[Applause.]  In  other  words,  several  years  ago  when 
Europe  was  at  her  maximum  strength  on  land  and  sea 
we  heard  nothing  about  this  most  lavish  proposed 
preparedness.  Now,  when  Europe  is  on  her  back, 
broke  and  bankrupt,  and  at  her  minimum  strength,  it 
seems  to  me  much  of  this  fear  at  this  particular  time 
is  groundless.  [Applause.] 

"MR.  SHACKLEFORD:  I  thought  the  gentleman 
interrupted  me  for  a  question,  but  it  turns  out  he  has 
not;  nevertheless  I  must  express  to  him  my  gratitude 
for  putting  so  much  better  than  I  could  the  very  thing 
I  was  thinking.  I  agree  with  him,  and  if  I  had  time  I 
should  like  to  discuss  the  impropriety  of  taking  the 
people's  credit  of  this  country  and  loaning  it  out  to 
the  foreign  countries  who  are  engaged  in  war. 
[Applause.]  We  should,  rather,  lend  it  to  our  own 
people  to  support  their  own  industries  and  carry  along 
prosperity  for  ourselves." 

Mr.  Focht's  incisive  reasoning  was  not  met  in  the 
House,  though  plenty  of  "preparedness"  gentlemen 
sat  around,  nor  has  it  been  answered  anywhere  else. 
But  did  one  New  York  newspaper  pay  any  attention 
to  what  he  said?  Did  one  of  them  deign  to  write 
an  editorial  reply  to  it?  Not  one.  So  far  as  they 
are  concerned,  Mr.  Focht  might  as  well  be  dead.  For 


POLITICS  OF  "PREPAREDNESS"        81 

them  he  does  not  exist.  They  do  not  know  him  and 
do  not  want  to  know  him.  Perusal  of  the  Congres- 
sional Record  shows  that  hardly  a  day  passes  that  some 
sort  of  a  blow  is  not  landed  in  Congress  upon  "pre- 
paredness." In  New  York,  at  least,  little  or  nothing 
is  printed.  But  let  the  Honorable  Gussie  Gardner 
emit  a  howl  for  men  and  guns  and  the  newspapers  ring 
with  it.  The  easiest  way  to  get  publicity  in  New  York 
last  winter  was  to  have  something  to  say  in  favor 
of  adopting  the  European  plan  to  avert  war.  The 
hardest  way  was  to  be  against  it. 

New  York  newspaper  editors  are  not  all  fools.  Some 
of  them,  if  they  had  a  chance,  would  print  some  sense. 
Not  all  of  them  would — some  of  them  would.  The 
difficulty  is  that  New  York  newspaper  editors  do  not 
edit  their  own  newspapers.  The  publishers  edit  the 
editors.  The  publisher  lays  down  to  his  editor  the 
newspaper's  "policy."  A  "policy"  is  both  a  deadline 
and  a  program.  It  is  a  list  of  things  to  do  and  a  list 
of  other  things  not  to  do.  Not  to  advocate  opposition 
to  "preparedness"  or  even  to  give  such  opposition 
favorable  consideration  in  the  news  columns  is  a  stand- 
ing order  in  the  office  of  every  New  York  newspaper 
except  the  Evening  Post.  The  editor  carries  out 
orders.  The  publisher  gives  orders. 

The  publisher  is  not  a.  publicist — he  is  a  business 
man.  Like  other  business  men,  he  is  making  money, 
owing  money  and  looking  for  money.  He  has  respect 
for  the  views  of  the  banker,  because  he  owes  him 
money,  or  knows  he  may  sometime  want  to  owe  him 
money.  He  has  respect  for  the  views  of  business  men 
because  he  knows  that  they,  like  himself,  are  looking 
for  money  and  the  easiest  way  to  get  it.  What  would 
be  good  for  them  is  likely  to  be  good  for  him.  What 


82          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

would  be  bad  for  them  would  probably  be  bad  for  him. 
As  business  men  they  are  all  in  the  same  boat.  And 
any  tendency  on  the  publisher's  part  to  pursue  a  public 
policy  opposed  to  the  views  of  his  business  acquaint- 
ances might  make  trouble  for  him.  Business  men,  if 
they  choose,  can  reward  those  who  play  the  game 
according  to  the  rules,  as  they  can,  if  they  choose, 
punish  those  who  refuse  to  do  so. 

If  the  publisher's  commodity  were  soap  instead  of 
what  purports  to  be  disinterested  advice  to  the  public, 
his  position  would  be  ethically  unassailable.  A  soap 
manufacturer  is  nothing  but  a  soap  manufacturer. 
He  does  not  pretend  to  be  saving  the  country — except 
from  dirt.  The  publisher  pretends  to  be  saving  the 
country.  Day  in  and  day  out  he  is  telling  his  part  of 
the  public  what  to  do  for  their  own  good.  In  his 
news  columns  he  pretends  to  print  the  news.  The 
truth  is  that,  when  great  public  questions  are  before 
the  country,  he  usually  takes  an  editorial  position  that 
is  dictated  by  the  selfish  interests  of  a  small  class  of 
which  he  is  a  part,  and  "prints  the  news"  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  fortify  his  editorial  position. 

Such  conduct  constitutes  a  fraud  against  the  pub- 
lic. Newspaper  readers  are  entitled  to  truthful  news. 
With  regard  to  the  "preparedness"  mania,  they  have 
not  been  getting  it.  It  is  not  truthful  to  misrepresent 
public  sentiment.  Public  sentiment  is  misrepresented 
when  nine-tenths  of  the  news  space  devoted  to  the 
subject  of  "preparedness"  is  handed  over  to  those  who 
favor  it.  It  is  not  truthful  to  represent  that  this  is 
almost  exclusively  a  land  of  Gussie  Gardners  and  Hud- 
son Maxims.  We  also  have  with  us  a  considerable 
number  of  persons  who,  unlike  Mr.  Maxim,  have  no 
ammunition  to  sell  and  who,  unlike  Mr.  Gardner,  do 


POLITICS  OF  "PREPAREDNESS"        83 

not  go  to  bed  with  goblins  and  get  up  with  ghosts. 
The  greater  part  of  the  country  has  not  lost  its  head. 
None  of  it  would  have  lost  its  head  if  the  newspapers 
had  not  lent  themselves  to  the  munitions  patriots  and 
the  great  business  interests  that,  for  years,  have  be- 
lieved big  trade  follows  a  big  navy.  The  few  who 
are  still  nervous  will  quickly  calm  down  if  the  news- 
papers will  but  cease  turning  in  false  alarms. 

The  world-war  at  last  shows  signs  of  burning  itself 
out.  The  strain  is  telling  upon  all  of  the  belligerents. 
Each  shows  less  speed.  If  the  war  were  to  end  to-day, 
nobody  in  Europe  outside  of  an  insane  asylum  would 
want  to  start  another  to-morrow.  The  longer  the 
war  lasts,  the  longer  will  the  memory  of  it  burn  those 
who  have  felt  its  fires.  It  seems  likely  to  drag  on, 
at  slower  pace,  for  a  year  or  two.  Europe  then  more 
than  ever  will  deserve  our  pity  rather  than  our  fear. 
It  will  be  the  saddest  sight  upon  which  the  sun  ever 
shone.  So  far  as  we  are  concerned,  it  will  be  about 
as  dangerous  as  a  cemetery.  Yet,  there  are  a  few 
powerful  men  among  us  who,  for  various  reasons, 
would  have  us  arm  vastly  more  heavily  against 
crippled,  disillusioned  Europe  than  they  ever  dared 
urge  that  we  arm  when  Europe  was  at  the  height  of 
its  military  power. 

Maybe  this  is  sense.  More  likely  it  is  dollars.  At 
any  rate,  it  is  a  crime.  It  is  a  crime  against  America. 
It  is  a  crime  against  Europe.  It  is  a  crime  against  the 
world.  We  should  be  talking  of  something  else. 
When  Europe  comes  out  of  her  terrible  struggle  we 
should  not  greet  her  with  a  knife.  Europe  is  suffering 
tremendously.  When  her  misery  ends  she  will  be  in 
no  mood  to  raise  more  armies  and  more  navies.  She 
will  be  glad  to  sink  back  and  rest  from  war  for  a 


84  INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

generation  or  two,  while  she  binds  up  her  wounds. 
We  should  not  even  seem  to  threaten  her.  We  should 
be  her  friend — the  friend  of  every  part  of  Europe. 
If  we  so  conduct  ourselves  that  we  deserve  Europe's 
friendship,  we  shall  get  it  If  we  arm  ourselves  to 
fight  a  cripple,  some  will  call  us  fools,  others  will  call 
us  cowards,  and  both  will  be  right. 


CHAPTER  V 

A  CLOSE  VIEW  OF  THE  WAR-ALARMISTS         •'" 

THE  process  of  outraging  public  decency  and  call- 
ing it  a  campaign  for  "preparedness"  goes 
merrily  on  in  these  United  States.  Perhaps  never 
before  were  more  lies  told,  more  truth  suppressed, 
more  insincerity  shown  or  more  politics  played.  Every- 
body who  is  in  the  game  had  his  own  particular  reason 
for  getting  into  it,  and  these  reasons  are  as  dissimilar 
as  things  can  be.  The  munitions  patriots  are  in  it 
in  the  hope  of  reaping  immediate  profits.  Other  great 
capitalistic  interests  are  in  it  in  the  hope  of  ultimately 
obtaining  profits  from  foreign  trade  gained  at  the 
points  of  guns.  A  few  timid  gentlemen  are  in  it 
because  their  souls  were  so  made  that  they  scent  fear 
where  there  is  no  danger.  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  in  it  be- 
cause he  loathes  "disgraceful  peace" — and  would  also 
like  to  be  in  the  White  House.  Mr.  Wilson  is  in  it 
because  he  feared  he  might  not  be  able  to  remain  in 
the  White  House  unless  he  got  into  the  fight  for  "pre- 
paredness." 

But  Mr.  Wilson,  as  a  fighter  for  "preparedness,"  is 
something  of  a  sight.  It  is  sometimes  difficult  to  tell 
whether  he  is  more  dangerous  to  his  friends  or  to  his 
enemies.  He  whirls  around  and  fires  rapidly  in  every 
direction,  sometimes  shelling  his  opponents  and,  occa- 
sionally, knocking  down  some  trusted  companion  like 
his  late  Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Garrison.  He  has 

85 


86          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

never  made  a  speech  in  favor  of  "preparedness"  that, 
somewhere  in  it,  he  did  not  give  a  conclusive  reason 
why  he  should  not  have  made  it.  His  speeches  are  the 
arsenal  toward  which  all  opponents  of  "preparedness" 
turn  for  their  best  ammunition.  Enemies  of  "pre- 
paredness" look  fondly  toward  him  as  a  gunner  might 
look  to  a  soldier  handing  him  shells.  We  can  never 
forgive  him  for  playing  politics  about  so  grave  a 
matter,  but  we  can  never  forget  the  weasel-words  he 
has  slipped  into  his  speeches — the  words  that  show  his 
speeches  are  not  so. 

Indeed,  the  campaign  for  "preparedness"  is  a  most 
amazing  campaign.  Many  men  who  know  nothing 
of  the  subject  of  which  they  speak  now  pose  as  experts. 
General  Leonard  Wood  has  been  widely  quoted  as 
saying  that  if  the  United  States  were  at  war  with  a 
first-class  power  our  navy  would  be  at  the  bottom 
of  the  sea  in  sixty  days.  What  General  Wood  knows 
about  navies  and  where  he  learned  it  might  be  inter- 
esting information.  He  used  to  be  a  doctor.  Fate 
made  him  the  friend  of  Theodore  Roosevelt.  Though 
Wood  had  never  been  to  West  Point,  except,  perhaps, 
as  a  tourist,  Mr.  McKinley  jumped  him  over  the  heads 
of  hundreds  of  others  and  sent  him  on  his  way  to  the 
head  of  the  army. 

As  a  general  in  time  of  peace,  Dr.  Wood  has  worn 
his  gold  braid  gracefully,  and,  it  is  to  be  presumed, 
drawn  his  salary  regularly.  He  has  never  fought 
a  battle,  or  planned  one  that  was  fought.  He  has 
never  raided  a  city  or  defended  one.  Unproved 
as  he  is,  it  may  yet  be  true  that,  if  he  had  an  oppor- 
tunity to  become  one,  he  would  indeed  be  a  great  gen- 
eral. But  where  and  when  under  the  shining  stars  did 


CLOSE  VIEW  OF  WAR-ALARMISTS     87 

he  ever  qualify  as  a  great  admiral?  Echo  is  still  play- 
ing handball  with  the  word  "where." 

If  Frank  F.  Fletcher  be  not  a  great  admiral,  Mr. 
Wilson  cannot  be  much  of  a  President.  Mr.  Wilson 
placed  Admiral  Fletcher  in  command  of  the  Atlantic 
Fleet.  The  Atlantic  Fleet  is  the  largest  fleet  we  have. 
If  the  invasion  which  Mr.  Wilson  says  could  not  take 
place  and  the  munitions  patriots  say  could  easily 
take  place,  were  actually  to  be  attempted,  Admiral 
Fletcher,  unless  displaced,  would  lead  our  sea-forces 
to  resist  it.  If  he  does  not  know  a  superior  force  from 
an  inferior  force,  he  would  be  a  poor  man  to  lead. 
He  would  be  a  poor  leader  because,  while  a  leader's 
first  qualification  is  to  know  when  to  fight,  his  second 
qualification  is  to  know  when  to  run.  It  is  not  good 
strategy  to  accept  battle  with  a  superior  force  when 
to  fight  means  only  to  be  annihilated.  The  thing  to  do 
then,  as  we  understand  it,  is  to  get  back  under  the  pro- 
tection of  your  shore  guns  and  let  them  help  you. 

The  point  toward  which  readers  are  laboriously 
being  led  is  that  Admiral  Fletcher,  in  December,  1914, 
told  the  House  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs  that,  in 
his  opinion,  the  American  Navy  could  defeat  any 
navy  on  earth  except  that  of  Great  Britain.  He  specifi- 
cally mentioned  the  navies  of  Germany,  France,  Italy, 
Japan  and  all  the  others  and  said  our  navy  could 
whip  any  of  them.  If  he  is  fit  to  lead  our  greatest 
fleet,  it  is  not  a  fact  that  our  navy  could  be  sunk  in 
sixty  days  by  any  first-class  power.  If  our  navy  could 
be  so  quickly  disposed  of,  General  Wood,  rather  than 
Admiral  Fletcher,  should  be  in  command  of  the  At- 
lantic Fleet.  General  Wood  would  at  least  know,  when 
sighting  the  mast-tops  of  a  ferocious  enemy,  that  he 
should  immediately  retire  to  the  protection  of  the 


88          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

land  fortifications.  Foolhardy  Fletcher  might  stay 
and  fight,  in  the  belief  that  our  forty-odd  battleships 
could  whip  Germany's  thirty-nine  or  Japan's  nineteen. 
He  might  even  stay  if  he  should  sight  the  British  colors 
at  the  mast-tops.  Admiral  Vreeland  said  England 
would  not  dare  remove  from  European  waters  more 
than  half  of  her  navy.  England,  at  the  beginning  of 
this  war,  had  but  72  battleships  built,  building  and 
authorized.  Foolhardy  Fletcher  might  believe  that 
if  England  should  come  here  with  thirty-six  craft,  he 
might  be  able  to  stand  them  off  with  our  forty-three. 

General  Wood  would  make  no  such  mistake.  His 
experience  as  a  doctor  and  a  peace  general  would  per- 
mit him  to  fall  into  no  such  naval  blunder.  But  why 
is  General  Wood  still  in  the  army?  The  President  is 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  navy.  If  Fletcher  does 
not  know  an  inferior  force  from  a  superior  one,  the 
President  could  remove  him  and,  if  he  desired,  place 
General  Wood  at  his  post.  The  President  has  not 
done  so.  General  Wood  is  still  somewhere  in  the  army, 
and  Admiral  Fletcher  is  still  in  command  of  the 
greatest  fleet  that  ever  wore  the  Stars  and  Stripes. 

And  this,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  Presi- 
dent, in  one  of  his  Western  speeches,  said  our  navy 
ranked  fourth  among  the  world's  navies.  Admiral 
Fletcher  was  compelled  by  Representative  Wither- 
spoon,  in  the  House  Committee  hearings  already  men- 
tioned, to  admit  that  it  ranked  second.  Admiral  Bad- 
ger, who  once  commanded  the  Atlantic  Fleet,  con- 
curred in  the  opinion.  Where  did  Mr.  Wilson  get  his 
authority  for  the  statement  that  our  navy  ranks  fourth  ? 
It  is  true  that,  almost  in  the  next  breath,  he  qualified 
the  statement  by  saying  that  owing  to  the  excellent 
material  in  the  personnel  of  our  navy,  it  would  prob- 


CLOSE  VIEW  OF  WAR-ALARMISTS     89 


ably  prove,  in  actual  combat,  to  be  better  than  fourth. 
But  where  did  he  get  the  slightest  authority  for  saying 
that  it  ranked  fourth?  The  1916  Naval  Yearbook  is 
compiled  by  gentlemen  who,  for  big-navy  purposes, 
are  always  trying  to  belittle  our  navy,  yet  this  Year- 
book contends  only  that  our  navy  stands  third,  and 
from  the  data  it  contains,  it  is  difficult  to  understand 
why  it  places  it  below  second.  Herewith  is  presented 
the  number  of  ships  built,  building  and  authorized  by 
the  principal  naval  powers,  according  to  the  United 
States  Naval  Yearbook  for  1916.  The  figures  for 
the  United  States  are  as  of  July  i,  1915.  The  figures 
for  the  other  countries  are  as  of  July  I,  1914,  no  data 
with  regard  to  new  construction  being  available  since 
the  outbreak  of  the  war. 


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Germany  

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France  

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Japan.  . 

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Based  upon  the  Navy  Department's  own  figures, 
what  nation  has  elbowed  the  United  States  into  fourth 
place  since  the  Yearbook  was  printed  early  in  1916? 
If  Germany  was  indeed  second  at  that  time,  no  amount 
of  additional  construction  could  have  affected  our  rela- 
tive standing.  The  same  holds  true  with  regard  to 
England.  What  nation  has  added  to  its  navy  so 
rapidly  that  Mr,  Wilson  had  reason  to  say  that  it 


90          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

had  taken  third  place  from  us?  Is  it  France,  which, 
according  to  our  Navy  Department,  had  only  thirty 
battleships,  as  against  the  thirty-nine  that  our  Navy 
Department  graciously  conceded  to  us?  Or  is  it 
Japan,  which  had  only  nineteen  ? 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  figures  can  be 
juggled,  and  the  General  Board  of  the  Navy,  which 
is  always  working  for  a  larger  American  navy,  has 
long  been  accused  of  juggling  figures  to  indicate  that 
our  navy  is  smaller  than  it  is.  Before  the  naval  appro- 
priations were  made  at  the  session  of  Congress  that 
convened  in  December,  1915,  Representative  Wither- 
spoon  read  a  list  of  forty  battleships  that  we  owned, 
and  all  the  naval  witnesses  whom  he  grilled  admitted 
that  we  had  them.  A  few  weeks  later,  appropriations 
were  made  for  two  dreadnoughts  so  large  that  no  navy 
in  the  world  can  match  them.  We  should  therefore 
now  have  forty-two  battleships.  The  Naval  Yearbook 
says  we  have  but  thirty-nine.  But  the  Yearbook  admits 
that  certain  discretion  is  used  in  determining  what 
is  a  battleship  for  statistical  purposes  and  what  is  not. 
A  ship  more  than  twenty  years  old  is  not  included 
unless  it  has  been  overhauled.  The  charge  has  often 
been  made  by  responsible  members  of  Congress  that 
the  General  Board  of  the  navy  removes  from  our  navy, 
for  statistical  purposes,  ships  of  the  same  worth  that 
it  includes,  for  statistical  purposes,  in  the  navies  of 
other  powers.  Certainly  Admiral  Fletcher  knew  what 
we  had  a  year  ago  when  he  said  our  navy  was  not 
second  to  that  of  Germany;  and,  in  a  recent  report, 
he  said  that  our  navy  was  15  per  cent,  stronger  than 
it  was  a  year  ago,  and  30  per  cent,  more  accurate  in 
gunfire.  (Congressional  Record  for  February  3,  1916, 
page  2266.) 


CLOSE  VIEW  OF  WAR-ALARMISTS     91 

What  about  the  German  navy,  in  comparison  with 
what  it  was  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war?  Nobody 
outside  of  Germany  knows  how  many  ships  have  been 
added  since  August  I,  1914.  Nobody  outside  of  Ger- 
many knows  all  of  the  German  ships  that  have  been 
lost.  But  the  American  Naval  Department  knows 
some  of  the  German  ships  that  have  been  lost,  and, 
in  the  1916  Yearbook,  prints  their  names,  tonnage, 
size  and  number  of  guns.  In  the  Yearbook  it  is  not 
contended  that  these  are  all  the  German  ships  that  have 
been  lost.  It  is  asserted  only  that  the  ships  mentioned 
were  lost  between  the  outbreak  of  the  war  and  August 
i,  1915.  Here  are  the  figures  of  German  losses  during 
the  first  year  of  the  war,  as  vouched  for  by  our  own 
Naval  Department: 

Five  armored  cruisers; 

Ten  protected  cruisers; 

Three  small  cruisers; 

Eight  gunboats; 

Nine  destroyers; 

Four  torpedo  boats; 

Seven  submarines; 

Four  mine-layers ; 

Eighteen  auxiliary  cruisers ; 

One  battleship  sold  to  Turkey. 

Sixty-nine  ships  of  a  total  tonnage  of  238,904,  every 
ship  of  which  was  included  in  Admiral  Fletcher's  cal- 
culation of  Germany's  naval  strength  when  he  said 
that  in  his  opinion  our  navy  was  stronger  than  that 
of  Germany.  Since  then,  two  dreadnoughts  of  32,000 
tons  each  have  been  ordered  for  our  navy,  in  addition 
to  eighteen  submarines,  and  a  considerable  number 
of  other  ships. 


92          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

What  nation,  by  passing  us  in  naval  strength  within 
a  few  weeks,  thereby  justified  Mr.  Wilson  in  placing 
our  navy  in  fourth  place?  According  to  the  1916 
Naval  Yearbook,  our  Naval  Department  knows  that 
France,  during  the  first  year  of  the  war,  lost  twelve 
ships,  including  a  battleship,  an  armored  cruiser,  a 
gunboat,  two  destroyers  and  some  submarines.  Eng- 
land is  declared  to  have  lost  42  ships,  of  a  combined 
tonnage  of  more  than  254,000,  eight  of  which  were 
battleships.  Is  it  Japan  that  has  gone  ahead  of  us? 
Not  likely.  Our  last  Naval  Yearbook  says  that  Japan 
actually  has  only  fifteen  battleships,  and  that  the  last 
of  the  other  four  with  which  she  is  credited  will  not  be 
finished  until  1917. 

If  the  United  States  is  a  peg  below  the  low  place  to 
which  the  makers  of  our  last  Naval  Yearbook  assigned 
us,  Mr.  Wilson,  it  would  seem,  should  get  some  new 
makers  of  our  Naval  Yearbooks.  If  not,  it  would  seem 
as  if  Mr.  Wilson  should  be  more  cautious  in  his  state- 
ments. It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  the  Naval  Year- 
book would  assign  to  our  navy  a  higher  relative  place 
than  it  deserves.  It  is  not  difficult  to  believe  that  it 
would  assign  to  our  navy  a  lower  place  than  it  de- 
serves. Something  is  wrong,  somewhere,  either 
Admiral  Fletcher,  the  General  Board  of  the  Navy  or 
Mr.  Wilson.  They  cannot  all  be  right  because  no  two 
of  them  agree. 

It  would  be  quite  easy  to  ascertain  where  we  stand 
upon  land  if  we  were  to  take  the  word  of  a  very 
eminent  gentleman  who  qualified  to  give  expert  testi- 
mony about  armies  by  spending  his  life  as  a  New  Jersey 
lawyer  and  judge.  The  gentleman  in  question  is  Mr. 
Garrison,  former  Secretary  of  War,  who,  happily,  is 
now  of  no  consequence  except  as  he  may  serve  as  an 


CLOSE  VIEW  OF  WAR-ALARMISTS     93 

admirable  illustration  of  the  vociferousness  of  some 
of  our  inexpert  advisers.  Mr.  Garrison  was  quite 
sure  we  were  woefully  unprepared.  Nothing  but  a 
"Continental  Army"  with  its  inevitable  conscription 
would  put  us  right.  Yet,  the  man  who  is  in  charge 
of  our  coast  defenses  does  not  think  so.  He  never 
practised  law  in  Jersey  or  presided  over  a  Jersey  court, 
but  he  has  practised  a  good  deal  with  fourteen-inch 
guns,  and  weapons  of  smaller  caliber. 

The  gentleman  in  question  is  Erasmus  Weaver.  He 
is  a  brigadier-general  in  the  United  States  Army.  He 
is  chief  of  the  coast  artillery  division.  His  duty,  in 
the  event  of  attempted  invasion  of  this  country,  would 
be  to  direct  the  operations  of  the  land  fortifications. 
Eminent  lawyers  and  others  say  these  land  fortifica- 
tions are  not  good  for  much.  No  self-respecting 
European  army  of  40,000  or  50,000  men  would  humili- 
ate themselves  by  halting  before  our  land  fortifications. 
Yet  General  Weaver,  testifying  before  the  House  Com- 
mittee a  year  ago  said  (Congressional  Record,  Feb- 
ruary 3,  1915,  page  2265)  : 

"I  have  been  a  close  student  of  the  whole  subject, 
naturally,  for  a  number  of  years,  and  I  know  of  no 
fortifications  in  the  world,  so  far  as  my  reading,  obser- 
vation and  knowledge  go,  that  compare  favorably  in 
efficiency  with  ours." 

But  that  was  a  year  ago.  Time  is  rapidly  passing. 
Maybe  we  have  since  become  out  of  date,  as  to  fortifi- 
cations. It  would  not  seem  so,  however.  General 
Weaver,  on  January  19,  1916,  again  appeared  before 
the  House  Committee  on  Military  Affairs.  He  said  if 
he  had  11,000  more  men  to  man  our  coast  guns  he 
would  ask  for  nothing  more.  I  quote  from  pages  48- 
49  of  the  report  of  the  hearings: 


94          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

"MR.  MCKELLAR  :  If  we  conclude  to  carry  out  your 
recommendations  and  give  you  the  11,000  men,  then, 
as  I  understand  you,  you  would  have  a  perfect  system 
of  coast  defense  that  you  think  would  be  adequate  for 
any  purpose  ? 

"GENERAL  WEAVER  :    Yes. 

"MR.  MCKELLAR:  Your  idea  is  that  your  guns 
are  sufficient  now  ? 

"GENERAL  WEAVER:  The  guns  now  mounted  and 
those  contemplated  will  give  us  an  entirely  satisfactory 
defense. 

"MR.  MCKELLAR  :  You  do  not  take  any  stock  in  the 
idea  that  the  ships  of  foreign  nations  carry  guns  of 
long  enough  range  to  silence  your  guns? 

"GENERAL  WEAVER  :    No." 

What  a  man  for  chief  of  our  coast  artillery!  Does 
he  not  know  that  we  are  totally  unprepared  and  that 
only  the  fear,  perhaps,  of  meeting  General  Leonard 
Wood  in  person,  keeps  the  enemy  from  our  gates  ? 

But  the  worst  is  yet  to  come.  On  page  50  of  the 
report  of  the  House  Committee  hearings  appears  the 
following : 

"MR.  MCKELLAR  :  I  want  to  ask  you,  General,  with 
our  present  condition,  is  our  condition  of  preparedness 
for  defense  deplorable? 

"GENERAL  WEAVER:  Except  in  the  matter  of  per- 
sonnel, it  is  not. 

"MR.  MCKELLAR  :  It  is  in  excellent  condition,  with 
the  addition  of  a  few  officers  and  men,  such  as  have 
been  recommended  by  the  department  and  by  you? 

"GENERAL  WEAVER:    Yes,  sir." 

Turning  to  page  69,  we  find  this: 

"MR.  MCKENZIE:  In  your  judgment,  is  it  not  un- 
'fair  and  misleading  to  the  American  people  to  have  a 


CLOSE  VIEW  OF  WAR-ALARMISTS     95 

public  man  make  a  statement  that  would  lead  you  to 
believe  that  the  coast  cities  of  our  country  are  wholly 
at  the  mercy  of  some  invading  enemy? 

"GENERAL  WEAVER  :  I  do  not  know  that  there  is 
any  officer  who  is  acquainted  with  the  facts  that  would 
make  such  a  statement. 

"MR.  McKENziE:  Any  public  man;  I  do  not  say 
an  officer. 

"GENERAL  WEAVER:  I  hesitate  to  criticize  public 
men." 

To  what  depths  of  degradation  has  not  this  general 
sunk!  Does  he  not  know  that  Mr.  Stanwood  Men- 
ken, President  of  the  National  Security  League,  is 
going  around  the  country  telling  how  easily  "40,000  or 
50,000  men"  could  land  upon  our  shores,  shoot  up 
New  York  and  hold  the  city  for  an  enormous  indem- 
nity? Has  this  general  no  conscience?  Apparently 
not.  Neither  has  General  Nelson  A.  Miles.  General 
Miles  endorses  all  that  General  Weaver  says  and  adds 
more.  It  is  true,  the  general  never  practised  law  in 
New  Jersey  or  medicine  anywhere,  though  he  was"  a 
major-general  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  and  later 
lieutenant-general.  This  is  what  General  Miles  said 
about  our  land  fortifications  (Congressional  Record, 
February  3,  page  2265)  : 

"Having  had  much  to.  do  with  placing  and  con- 
struction of  our  fortifications  and  inspecting  every 
one  along  the  Atlantic,  Pacific  and  Gulf  Coasts,  as  well 
as  having  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  all  the  great 
armies  of  the  world  and  many  of  their  strongest  forti- 
fications, including  the  Dardanelles,  I  am  prepared  to 
say  that  our  coasts  are  as  well  defended  as  the  coasts 
of  any  country,  with  the  same  class  of  high-power  guns 
and  heavy  projectiles,  and  I  have  no  sympathy  for 


96          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

the  misrepresentations  that  have  been  made  in  the 
attempt  to  mislead  the  public." 

Isn't  that  the  limit?  Nope.  On  February  8,  1916, 
the  General  went  before  the  House  Committee  on 
Military  Affairs  and  said : 

"Overseas  expeditions,  such  as  we  are  told  would 
succeed  against  the  United  States,  are  expensive  and 
as  a  rule  disastrous.  These  overseas  expeditions  spring 
from  the  minds  of  men  writing  on  preparedness 
who  know  less  about  preparedness  than  anything 
else." 

But  General  Miles  never  had  the  benefit  of  long 
years  of  experience  at  the  New  Jersey  bar.  Otherwise, 
he  might  not  have  added  that  while  500,000  men  might 
be  placed  upon  ships,  that  many  could  not  be  landed 
upon  our  shores,  and  that  he  "would  want  to  live  in 
some  other  country"  if  we  could  not  drive  off  even 
500,000  men  from  our  soil.  It  is  perfectly  plain  that 
in  future,  our  greatest  generals  will  be  graduated  from 
law  schools,  while  our  great  admirals  will  come  from 
medical  colleges. 

Whether  Mr.  Wilson  is  trying  to  help  or  to  hurt  the 
"preparedness"  propaganda  is  puzzling  both  the  advo- 
cates and  the  opponents  of  increased  military 
expenditures.  If  the  President  were  a  stupid,  clumsy 
fellow,  it  might  be  easy  enough  for  either  side  to 
believe  in  his  sincerity  while  denouncing  him  for  occa- 
sionally shooting  his  own  friends.  But  the  President 
is  particularly  adroit  and  peculiarly  agile.  Like  the 
conventional  gentleman  of  the  French  cynic,  he  "never 
wounds  anybody's  feelings  unintentionally."  When 
he  leads  a  gentleman  to  the  mountain  top  and,  after 
briefly  viewing  the  beautiful  scenery,  proceeds  to  kick 
him  into  the  valley,  we  may  therefore  be  certain  the 


CLOSE  VIEW  OF  WAR-ALARMISTS     97 

victim  can  recover  nothing  upon  his  accident  insurance 
— because  it  was  no  accident. 

The  late  Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Garrison,  must 
feel  much  as  might  a  guest  at  a  wealthy  friend's  house, 
who  had  been  royally  entertained  during  the  day  and, 
at  night,  shown  to  a  bedroom  in  which  a  pistol  for 
suicidal  purposes  was  prominently  placed  on  the  table 
beside  the  reading  lamp.  When  Mr.  Garrison  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  a  great  "Continental  Army,"  White 
House  approval  came  like  April  showers  to  flowers. 
Full  reports  were  given  out  to  the  press  and  the  Ameri- 
can people  were  invited  to  behold  how  noble — or,  as 
Mr.  Wilson  would  say,  how  "handsome" — was  the 
plan  of  the  great  Secretary  of  War.  Chairman  Hay, 
of  the  House  Committee  on  Military  Affairs,  soon 
announced  that  his  committee  would  never  report 
favorably  upon  the  bill,  and  that  the  committee  would 
propose,  in  its  place,  a  regular  army  based  upon  the 
National  Guard.  Mr.  Wilson,  in  his  New  York  speech 
on  January  27,  1916,  threw  a  delicate  bouquet  at  the 
National  Guard  in  the  center  of  which  was  found  this 
brick : 

"But  you  know  that  under  the  constitution,  the 
National  Guard  is  under  the  direction  of  more  than 
two  score  states,  and  that  it  is  not  permitted  to  the 
national  government  directly  to  direct  its  development 
and  organization.  And,  that  only  upon  occasion  of 
actual  invasion  has  the  President  of  the  United  States 
the  right  to  ask  those  men  to  leave  their  respective 
states.  I,  for  my  part,  am  afraid,  though  some  gentle- 
men differ  with  me,  that  there  is  no  way  in  which  that 
force  can  be  made  a  direct  source  as  a  national  reserve 
under  national  authority." 

What  more  might  a  Secretary  of  War  ask?    Had 


98          INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

not  the  President  hit  Mr.  Hay's  plan  on  the  head? 
It  would  seem  as  if  he  had.  It  was  true  that  nobody 
believed  a  Continental  Army  could  be  raised  without 
conscription,  as  it  was  also  true  that  Mr.  Wilson  had 
authorized  the  statement  that  he  was  opposed  to  con- 
scription. Still,  Mr.  Garrison  went  his  warlike  way, 
evidently  believing  that  the  President  was  on  his  side, 
rather  than  that  of  Mr.  Hay. 

But  there  came  a  time  when  Mr.  Garrison  began 
to  have  misgivings.  Rumors  flew  about  that  Mr.  Wil- 
son was  not  so  warm  toward  the  Continental  Army 
plan  as  the  Secretary  of  War  might  wish  him  to  be. 
Mr.  Garrison,  by  this  time,  was  so  thoroughly  com- 
mitted to  the  Continental  scheme,  and  was  so  on  record 
with  regard  to  the  desirability  of  conscription,  if 
necessary  to  raise  the  army,  that  he  could  neither  back 
up  nor  go  forward  without  help.  So  he  wrote  to  the 
President,  under  date  of  February  9,  to  ascertain  in 
writing  precisely  where  he  stood  with  regard  to  Mr. 
Hay's  National  Guard  proposal. 

Mr.  Wilson,  under  next  day's  date,  told  him. 
Though  the  President  gently  rapped  Mr.  Garrison's 
knuckles  for  talking  so  much  about  conscription,  the 
letter  was  otherwise  chiefly  remarkable  for  what  it  did 
not  say,  precisely  as  a  crutch  that  is  not  there  is  chiefly 
remarkable  for  the  support  it  does  not  give.  Mr.  Wil- 
son was  no  longer  "afraid"  the  National  Guard  scheme 
would  not  work — he  was  merely  "not  yet  convinced" 
that  it  would  work.  When  Mr.  Wilson  begins  to  slide, 
it  is  always  wise  for  all  hands  to  get  off  the  floor,  as 
it  is  difficult  to  tell  where  he  will  stop.  Mr.  Garrison 
got  off  the  floor  by  resigning. 

As  political  coroners,  we  may  now  view  the  remains 
of  the  Continental  Army.  What  say  you,  gentlemen, 


CLOSE  VIEW  OF  WAR-ALARMISTS     99 

how  did  this  noble  creation  come  to  its  finish  ?  Is  this 
a  case  of  murder,  or  a  case  of  accidental  death?  If 
Mr.  Wilson  really  was  in  favor  of  the  Continental 
Army  plan,  we  must  assume  that  it  was  through  sheer 
clumsiness  that  he  led  the  chief  advocate  of  the  measure 
into  a  position  where  he  felt  compelled  to  resign.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Wilson  secretly  opposed  the 
Continental  Army,  nobody  can  deny  that  he  despatched 
his  gallant  secretary  in  as  graceful  a  manner  as  ever 
a  deed  was  done. 

Mr.  Wilson  has  a  wonderful  smile.  Political  op- 
ponents who  bask  in  it  seldom  know  the  knife  has 
slipped  between  their  ribs  until  they  observe  that  their 
shoes  are  full  of  blood. 

If  the  President,  when  he  was  dealing  with  Gar- 
rison, was  really  working  for  "preparedness"  he  must 
be  set  down  as  a  frightful  blunderer.  If  he  was 
secretly  working  against  "preparedness,"  he  but  con- 
firmed the  truth  of  the  statement  that  Oswald  Garrison 
Villard,  publisher  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post,  said 
Colonel  E.  M.  House,  the  President's  closest  friend, 
made  to  him.  Mr.  Villard  said  Colonel  House  told 
him:  "The  Wilson  Defense  Program  was  put  up  to 
be  knocked  down." 

Senator  Fall,  of  New  Mexico,  seems  to  have  sensed 
something  of  the  real  situation  after  the  resignation 
of  Mr.  Garrison.  Under  date  of  February  15,  the  New 
York  Times  printed  two-thirds  of  a  column  under  the 
heading:  "Accuses  Wilson  of  Shifting  Policy — 
Senator  Fall  Believes  the  President  Is  Again  Under 
the  Bryan  Influence."  Here  are  a  few  paragraphs 
from  the  article : 

"United  States  Senator  Albert  B.  Fall,  Republican, 
of  New  Mexico,  charged  President  Wilson  yesterday 


loo         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

with  deserting  the  cause  of  national  preparedness  for 
the  sake  of  the  Bryan  influences. 

"  'The  President's  sudden  change  in  his  prepared- 
ness policy  can  be  accounted  for  only  on  one  ground — 
he  has  gone  back  to  Mr.  Bryan  and  surrendered  to 
the  Bryan  influences,'  said  the  Senator. 

"It  may  be  recalled  that  President  Wilson,  during 
his  tour  in  advocacy  of  preparedness,  so  shaped  his 
itinerary  as  to  keep  clear  of  the  Bryan  influences.  But 
he  counted  on  the  support  which  this  part  of  his  defense 
program  was  expected  to  bring  him  to  secure  also  the 
support  of  the  Southern  members  of  Congress,  and 
being  disappointed  in  this  he  has  surrendered  com- 
pletely to  the  opponents  of  the  measures  which  he  pro- 
claimed were  so  vital  to  the  safety  of  the  country. 

"Secretary  Garrison  in  his  position  was  able  to 
realize  quickly  the  change  in  the  situation,  and,  finding 
the  ground  cut  from  under  him,  he  retired." 

Without  question,  the  belief  is  gaining  ground  on 
both  sides  of  Congress  that  there  is  more  of  politics 
than  sincerity  in  the  President's  present  attitude  toward 
"preparedness."  Heaven  knows  there  is  sufficient 
ground  for  suspicion.  The  statement  that  Mr.  Villard 
attributes  to  Colonel  House  is,  in  itself,  enough  to 
show  where  the  President  stands  if  he  has  not  changed 
again.  A  close  analysis  of  the  President's  Western 
speeches  leaves  the  preponderance  of  improbability 
upon  the  side  of  the  President's  insincerity.  If  his 
speeches  be  considered  as  hurrah-talk  for  men  who 
cannot  think,  it  is  doubtless  true  that  their  tendency 
would  be  to  make  that  kind  of  men  favor  "prepared- 
ness." The  speeches  are  plentifully  sprinkled  with 
references  to  "our  country"  and  our  national  honor. 
But  running  through  the  speeches,  like  a  vein  of  silver 


CLOSE  VIEW  OF  WAR-ALARMISTS    101 

through  a  rock,  are  paragraphs  that,  when  put  together, 
say,  as  plainly  as  if  the  President  had  used  the  words: 
"For  goodness'  sake,  do  not  go  crazy  over  prepared- 
ness. The  country  is  in  no  danger  of  invasion.  I 
know  of  no  nation  that  seems  likely  to  try  to  invade 
America — and  no  nation  could  invade  America  if  it 
wanted  to.  I  am  compelled  to  play  a  part  in  order  to 
prevent  Mr.  Roosevelt  from  working  you  all  up  and 
putting  me  out  of  the  White  House,  but  there  will  be 
no  war  so  long  as  I  am  President  unless  you  want  war 
to  avenge  the  loss  of  some  rich  American  exporter's 
cargo  of  goods — and  I  cannot  see  where  there  would  be 
much  glory  in  dying  to  protect  some  rich  man's 
profits." 

Keep  this  imaginary  Presidential  declaration  in  mind 
while  reading  extracts  from  some  of  Mr.  Wilson's 
speeches. 

In  New  York,  on  January  27,  Mr.  Wilson  said : 

"Nobody  seriously  supposes,  gentlemen,  that  the 
United  States  needs  to  fear  an  invasion  of  its  own 
territory.  What  America  has  to  fear,  if  she  has  any- 
thing to  fear,  are  indirect,  roundabout,  flank  move- 
ments upon  her  regnant  position  in  the  Western  Hemis- 
phere." 

Would  the  President  have  been  likely  to  say  that 
if  he  had  really  been  in  favor  of  "preparedness"  ?  The 
only  excuse  for  "preparedness"  is  defense.  When  the 
average  American  is  told  that  his  country  is  in  need 
of  defense,  he  thinks  of  invasion.  Munitions  patriots 
and  others  have  repeatedly  declared  that  we  might 
easily  be  treated  to  the  fate  of  Belgium.  The  Presi- 
dent brushed  the  thought  aside,  and  flung  in  the  remark 
about  our  "regnant  position  in  the  Western  Hemis- 
phere," which  has  about  as  much  power  to  incite  the 


102         INVITING  WAR. TO  AMERICA 

population  to  arms  as  would  a  similar  remark  about 
the  moon. 

In  Cleveland,  on  January  29,  the  President  took  the 
other  tack  and  urged  the  creation  of  an  armed  force 
that  could  move  on  the  "shortest  possible  notice," 
adding : 

"You  will  ask  me:  'Why  do  you  say  the  shortest 
possible  notice?'  Because,  gentlemen,  let  me  tell  you, 
very  solemnly,  you  cannot  afford  to  postpone  this 
thing.  I  do  not  know  what  a  single  day  may  bring 
forth.  I  do  not  wish  to  leave  you  with  the  impression 
that  I  am  thinking  of  some  particular  danger.  I  merely 
want  to  leave  you  with  this  solemn  impression  that  I 
know  that  we  are  daily  treading  amid  the  most  intri- 
cate dangers.  ..." 

Having  assured  the  people  in  New  York  that  there 
was  no  danger  whatever  of  invasion,  Mr.  Wilson 
naturally  realized  that  the  people  would  wonder 
whether  he  had  some  particular  possible  enemy  in 
mind,  and,  if  so,  if  that  possible  enemy  had  com- 
mitted some  outrage  of  which  the  people  of  this 
country  were  not  yet  aware.  So  in  Topeka,  Kan.,  on 
February  2,  he  said : 

"You  will  ask  me,  'Is  there  some  new  crisis  that  has 
arisen?'  I  answer,  no,  sir;  there  is  no  special  new, 
critical  situation  which  I  have  to  discuss  with  you,  but 
I  want  you  to  understand  that  the  situation  every  day 
of  the  year  is  critical  while  this  great  contest  continues 
in  Europe." 

No  danger  of  invasion,  no  particular  possible  enemy 
in  mind,  no  outrage  of  which  only  he  knew,  and  still 
the  country  was  "daily  treading  among  the  most  intri- 
cate dangers."  Here  were  all  the  elements  of  a  conun- 
drum, upon  which  Mr.  Wilson,  in  St.  Louis, 


CLOSE  VIEW  OF  WAR-ALARMISTS   103 

on  February  3,  proceeded  to  throw  the  following 
light: 

"Gentlemen,  the  commanders  of  submarines  have 
their  instructions,  and  those  instructions  are  consistent, 
for  the  most  part,  with  the  law  of  nations,  but  one 
reckless  commander  of  a  submarine  choosing  to  put 
his  private  interpretation  upon  what  his  government 
wishes  him  to  do,  might  set  the  world  on  fire.  .  .  . 
There  are  cargoes  of  cotton  on  the  seas,  cargoes  of 
wheat  on  the  seas,  there  are  cargoes  of  manufactured 
articles  on  the  seas,  and  every  one  of  these  cargoes 
may  be  the  point  of  ignition,  because  every  cargo 
comes  into  the  field  of  fire,  comes  where  there  are 
flames  which  no  man  can  control." 

Here,  at  last,  we  see  the  "intricate  dangers"  among 
which  we  are  "daily  treading."  A  cargo  of  hams  may 
be  sunk!  If  so,  would  not  that  constitute  an  enormous 
stain  upon  our  national  honor,  for  which  we  should 
go  to  war  ?  We  can  almost  imagine  Mr.  Wilson  trying 
to  keep  his  face  straight.  He  must  have  laughed  to 
himself  when  he  suggested  that  we  should  go  to  war 
if  a  submarine  commander,  against  his  government's 
orders,  should  sink  a  cargo  of  American  hams.  Mr. 
Wilson,  of  course,  well  knows  that  international  law 
requires  of  no  government  that  it  shall  do  more  than 
exercise  "due  diligence"  in  its  efforts  to  prevent  its 
citizens  and  soldiers  from  doing  harm  to  the  persons 
and  properties  of  the  citizens  of  other  nations.  If 
nations  were  to  be  held  responsible  for  the  unlawful 
and  unauthorized  acts  of  its  citizens,  the  world  would 
be  at  war  all  the  while.  Again  and  again,  American 
citizens  have  mobbed  and  slain  the  citizens  of  other 
nations.  A  number  of  Italians  were  slain  in  Louisiana 
about  25  years  ago,  and  when  the  federal  government 


104         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

pleaded  its  helplessness  to  interfere  with  the  affairs 
of  a  state,  Italy  did  no  more  than  to  withdraw  her 
ambassador,  for  a  time,  in  silent  protest.  Further- 
more, if  Mr.  Wilson  had  believed  what  he  said,  he 
would  have  urged  Congress  to  declare  war  when  the 
Lusitania  was  sunk. 

However,  we  must  get  back  to  those  "intricate 
dangers."  American  passengers,  bound  for  Europe, 
might  be  drowned.  International  law  gives  them  the 
right  to  travel  in  safety.  Speaking  at  Topeka,  Kan., 
on  February  2,  Mr.  Wilson  said : 

"For  one  thing,  it  may  be  necessary  to  use  the  force 
of  the  United  States  to  vindicate  the  right  of  American 
citizens  everywhere  to  enjoy  the  protection  of  interna- 
tional law." 

Having  proclaimed  the  right  of  passengers,  under 
international  law,  to  travel  in  safety,  in  the  same  speech 
at  Topeka,  he  added: 

"There  is  another  right  that  we  ought  to  safeguard, 
and  that  is  our  right  to  sell  what  we  produce  in  the 
open  neutral  markets  of  the  world.  We  have  a  right 
to  supply  peaceful  populations  with  food.  We  have 
a  right  to  supply  them  with  our  cotton  to  clothe  them. 
We  have  a  right  to  supply  them  with  our  manufactured 
products." 

So,  here  we  have  the  situation  simmered  down  about 
to  this :  American  passengers  are  not  in  much  if  any 
danger,  since  most  submarine  warfare  is  conducted 
in  accordance  with  international  law,  nor  are  Ameri- 
can cargoes,  for  the  same  reason,  in  much  danger. 
But  Great  Britain's  irregular  blockade,  against  which 
Mr.  Wilson  has  protested  on  the  ground  that  it  is  in 
violation  of  international  law,  is  interfering  with  the 
desires  of  American  exporters  to  reap  profits  from 


CLOSE  VIEW  OF  WAR-ALARMISTS   105 

trade  with  neutrals.  "We  have  a  right"  to  supply  these 
peoples  with  our  food,  cotton  and  manufactured  prod- 
ucts, but  England's  irregular  blockade  is  interfering 
with  us;  and  every  interference  with  our  rights  under 
international  law  is  a  stain  put  upon  our  national  honor. 
As  to  the  necessity  of  keeping  our  national  honor  well 
polished,  Mr.  Wilson  expressed  himself  at  Cleveland, 
on  January  29,  as  follows: 

"You  may  count  upon  my  part  and  resolution  to 
keep  you  out  of  the  war,  but  you  must  be  ready  if  it 
is  necessary  that  I  should  maintain  your  honor.  That 
is  the  only  thing  a  real  man  loves  about  himself." 

Why  not  go  to  war,  if  necessary,  to  maintain  the 
right  of  some  rich  gentleman  whom  you  never  saw 
and  for  whom  you  do  not  care  a  whoop,  to  ship  his 
goods  to  neutrals  and  get  his  money?  Mr.  Wilson 
made  himself  plain  as  to  this  in  Kansas  City  on  Feb- 
ruary 2  in  the  following  paragraph : 

"Our  life  is  but  a  little  span.  One  generation  fol- 
lows another  very  quickly.  If  a  man  with  red  blood 
in  him  had  his  choice,  knowing  that  he  must  die,  he 
would  rather  die  to  vindicate  some  right,  unselfish  to 
himself,  than  die  in  his  bed." 

Did  Mr.  Wilson  expect  that  the  people  would  rise 
en  masse,  as  it  were,  to  resent  any  interference  with 
the  continuous  movement'of  American  beef  to  Europe, 
yielding  their  lives,  if  need  be,  in  the  performance  of 
this  sacred  duty  to  their  national  honor — or  was  the 
President  merely  trying  to  show  how  stupid  it  would 
be  to  become  all  heated  up  when  there  is  nothing  more 
serious  at  stake  than  the  right  of  a  few  rich  men, 
"under  international  law,"  to  keep  their  exports  going 
and  their  profits  coming? 

Now,   the    foregoing   is  not  a   "framed-up"   case 


io6         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

against  the  President.  The  quoted  paragraphs  are 
actual  extracts  from  his  speeches.  No  words  have 
been  put  into  his  mouth.  Perhaps  I  should  add  a  few 
more  of  his  own  words.  In  his  Topeka  speech,  after 
elaborating  upon  the  exalted  character  of  our  national 
purposes  and  the  exceeding  rectitude  of  our  national 
conduct,  he  said: 

"Every  nation  that  makes  right  its  guide  and  honor 
its  principle  is  sure  of.  peace." 

Readers  may  differ  as  to  whether  the  foregoing 
sentiment  is  true,  but  the  fact  remains  that  the  Presi- 
dent said  it  was  true,  and  if  he  believes  it  is  true,  and 
also  believes  we  are  nationally  as  just  and  high-minded 
as  he  says  we  are,  why  should  we  fear  attack,  and  why 
should  we  burden  ourselves  with  taxation  and  con- 
scription to  "prepare"?  Something  is  wrong  some- 
where. 

The  President,  in  his  address  to  Congress,  in  Decem- 
ber, 1914,  said: 

"We  are  at  peace  with  all  the  world.  No  one  who 
speaks  counsel  based  on  fact  and  candid  interpretation 
of  realities  can  say  that  there  is  reason  to  fear  that 
from  any  quarter  our  independence  or  integrity  of  our 
territory  is  threatened.  .  .  .  We  have  never  had,  and 
while  we  retain  our  present  principles  and  ideals,  we 
shall  never  have,  a  large  standing  army.  .  .  .  The 
country  has  been  misinformed.  We  have  not  been  neg- 
ligent of  the  national  defense.  .  .  .  But  I  turn  away 
from  the  subject.  It  is  not  new.  There  is  no  need  to 
discuss  it.  We  shall  not  alter  our  attitude  toward  it 
because  some  amongst  us  are  nervous  and  excited." 

The  President  has  altered  his  attitude  toward  the 
subject  of  "preparedness";  altered  it  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  he  still  says  no  thoughtful  man  seriously 


CLOSE  VIEW  OF  WAR-ALARMISTS    107 

believes  this  country  could  be  invaded.  In  New  York, 
on  January  27,  he  said  he  had  altered  his  attitude 
because  he  had  "learned  something  during  the  last 
year." 

What  has  he  learned — that  Theodore  Roosevelt  is 
trying  to  ride  his  way  back  into  the  White  House 
upon  a  tidal  wave  of  popular  fear  that  he  has  done  his 
best  to  conjure  up? 

If  Mr.  Wilson  has  learned  anything  that  would 
justify  the  enormous  military  expenditures  that  he 
proposes,  he  certainly  has  not  told  what  it  is. 


CHAPTER  VI 

QUESTIONS  FOR  THE  PRESIDENT 

PRESIDENT  WILSON,  during  his  western  tour, 
•*•  frequently  said  that  he  knew  not  in  what  hour  this 
nation  might  be  plunged  into  war  and  that  we  should 
hasten  to  "prepare."  At  Cleveland,  on  January  29, 
1916,  he  urged  the  creation  of  an  armed  force  that 
could  move  "on  the  shortest  possible  notice"  and 
added : 

"You  will  ask  me :  'Why  do  you  say,  the  shortest 
possible  notice?'  Because,  gentlemen,  you  cannot 
afford  to  postpone  this  thing.  I  do  not  know  what  a 
single  day  may  bring  forth." 

Against  these  statements  should  be  considered  some 
facts  that  were  brought  out  in  the  House  of  Repre^ 
sentatives  on  February  7,  1916,  and  published  in  the 
Congressional  Record  of  that  date.  Here  are  the 
facts : 

On  March  3,  1915,  the  Congress  authorized  the 
construction  of  two  dreadnoughts  larger  than  any 
nation  now  owns.  Not  even  one  splinter  has  been  laid 
upon  another  to  begin  the  construction  of  these  ships. 
When  the  ships  were  authorized  it  was  the  desire  of 
the  administration  that  they  should  be  built  in  govern- 
ment yards,  of  which  there  are  two,  one  at  Mare 
Island,  Calif.,  and  one  at  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  In  each  of 
these  yards  a  dreadnought  is  building  that  will  not  be 
completed  until  September,  1916.  The  keels  of  the 

1 08 


QUESTIONS  FOR  THE  PRESIDENT    109 

great  dreadnoughts  authorized  in  March,  1915,  cannot 
be  laid  in  government  yards  until  the  ships  building 
are  completed.  But  President  Wilson  might  have 
directed  Secretary  Daniels  to  abandon  his  plan  to  build 
the  ships  in  government  yards,  advertise  for  bids  from 
private  builders  and  directed  that  construction  be  begun 
at  once  and  continued  with  three  shifts  of  men  working 
eight  hours  each  during  the  entire  twenty-four  hours. 
Or,  if  Congress,  in  the  act  authorizing  the  construction 
of  the  ships,  had  specifically  provided  that  they  should 
be  built  in  government  yards,  the  President  might  have 
asked  Congress  to  authorize  their  construction  in  pri- 
vate yards.  The  President  has  done  neither  of  these 
things. 

The  Congressional  Record  of  February  7,  1916,  also 
contains  the  information  that  66  warships  which,  when 
completed,  will  cost  $185,000,000,  are  in  process  of 
construction,  that  the  administration  has  never  even 
intimated  that  it  would  be  pleased  if  construction  were 
accelerated,  and  that  the  men  employed  on  these  ships 
are  working  only  eight  hours  a  day,  in  the  face  of  the 
fact  that  it  would  be  perfectly  feasible  to  employ  three 
crews  working  twenty-four  hours  a  day. 

These  facts  were  printed  in  the  Congressional  Rec- 
ord. I  read  them  in  the  Record,  but  nowhere  else.  I 
do  not  assert  that  they  were  printed  nowhere  else. 
I  know  only  that  I  read  most  of  the  New  York  news- 
papers and  did  not  see  these  facts  until  I  saw  them 
in  the  Record.  If  they  were  printed  at  all  they  were 
printed  obscurely,  and  without  any  of  the  emphasis 
that,  it  would  appear,  should  have  accompanied  them. 

It  seemed  as  if  these  facts  should  be  brought  before 
the  country.  An  invitation  that  came  to  me  in  March, 
1916,  gave  me  what  I  believed  would  be  an  opportunity 


no         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

to  bring  them  before  at  least  part  of  the  country.  The 
Anti-"Preparedness"  Committee  asked  me  to  go  to 
Washington  and  argue  against  "preparedness"  before 
the  House  Committee  on  Naval  Affairs.  I  laid  these 
facts  before  the  committee  and  followed  with  an  argu- 
ment along  this  line : 

If  anybody  knows  whether  we  are  in  danger  of  being 
attacked  it  is  the  President,  since  he  is  in  charge  of  our 
diplomatic  negotiations,  and,  although  he  has  publicly 
asserted  that  he  has  told  the  country  everything,  still 
there  may  be  impressions  in  his  mind,  too  nebulous  to 
describe,  that  make  him  more  nearly  competent  than 
anybody  else  to  judge  correctly  as  to  the  probability 
or  the  possibility  that  we  shall  be  attacked.  We  all 
know  what  the  President  has  said — that  he  knows 
not  what  the  next  day  may  bring  forth  and  that  we 
should  hasten  to  "prepare."  But  actions  as  well  as 
words  tell  what  men  think.  What  do  the  President's 
actions  tell  as  to  what  he  thinks?  If  he  really  believes 
our  danger  to  be  as  great  as  he  says  it  is,  would  he 
be  clamoring  for  more  dreadnought  authorizations 
when  he  has  not  taken  advantage  of  the  two  authoriza- 
tions made  more  than  a  year  ago  ?  Would  he  let  con- 
struction upon  66  other  ships  dawdle  along  at  an 
eight-hour-a-day  pace  when  it  might  as  well  be  boom- 
ing along  at  a  24-hour-a-day  pace?  I  might  have 
added :  "Would  he  have  maneuvered  Big  Army  Gar- 
rison out  of  the  War  Department  and  appointed 
Newton  D.  Baker,  who,  as  mayor  of  Cleveland,  was 
one  of  the  few  mayors  who  absolutely  refused  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  the  'preparedness*  movement?" 

But  there  was  no  time  for  the  last  question.  Chair- 
man Padgett  with  his  gavel  sounded  the  signal  for  a 
great  tumult:  The  chairman  expressed  indignation 


QUESTIONS  FOR  THE  PRESIDENT    in 

that  I  should  dare  to  question  the  sincerity  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States.  I  said  that  if  the  President 
were  five  times  as  large  as  he  is  and  the  White  House 
were  five  times  as  white  as  it  is,  still  would  I  question 
the  sincerity  of  the  President  with  regard  to  the  degree 
of  fear  that  he  entertains  that  we  shall  be  attacked  by 
any  European  power.  I  was  invited  by  the  chairman 
to  withdraw  my  statement  from  the  record.  I  refused 
and  asked  him  if  he  would  like  to  hear  a  much  stronger 
statement  concerning  the  President's  sincerity  that  had 
been  made  to  me  that  morning  by  one  of  the  most 
prominent  Democratic  members  of  Congress.  I  had 
no  intention  of  mentioning  the  statesman's  name, 
because  he  had  spoken  to  me  in  confidence,  and  I  had 
no  authority  to  do  so;  but  I  was  willing  to  tell  what 
he  had  said.  The  Democratic  gentlemen  upon  the 
committee  did  not  seem  to  want  to  hear.  Several  cries 
of  "No"  went  around  the  room.  When  the  chairman 
declared  that  he  would  expunge  my  charge  from  the 
committee's  records,  I  told  him  I  had  no  concern  as  to 
what  he  might  do  in  that  direction,  nor  had  I  because 
I  knew  he  could  expunge  nothing  from  the  newspapers 
whose  reporters  were  present,  and  nobody  ever  reads 
the  records,  anyway.  When  a  member  of  the  com- 
mittee informed  me  that  congressional  ethics  forbade 
any  reflection  upon  the.  President's  sincerity,  I  asked 
him  if  congressional  ethics  permitted  congressmen 
to  say  to  writers  and  to  each  other  what  they  pleased 
about  the  President,  provided  only  they  said  the  oppo- 
site in  public?  There  was  a  good  deal  of  turmoil  in 
the  room  and  I  heard  no  answer  to  this  question. 

Then  Chairman  Padgett  expressed  the  intention  of 
adjourning  the  hearing — which  meant  shutting  me  off. 
Representative  Callaway  of  Texas,  who  is  about  as 


H2         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

tall  and  lean  and  rangey  as  a  Texan  should  be,  came 
forward  with  a  protest.  He  said  any  American  citizen 
had  a  right  to  criticize  the  President,  or  any  other 
official,  provided  he  kept  within  the  law,  and  that  in 
his  opinion  I  had  kept  within  the  law.  I  think  one  or 
two  others  protested.  At  any  rate,  I  was  permitted  to 
proceed. 

Now,  the  importance  of  what  I  have  written  about 
the  "scene"  before  the  committee  lies  in  what  is  to 
come.  Here  it  is :  Immediately  after  the  adjournment 
of  the  committee  several  of  its  members  came  to  me, 
introduced  themselves  in  the  most  cordial  fashion, 
expressed  interest  in  and  approval  of  my  opposition  to 
the  administration's  "preparedness"  program,  and  one 
of  them  gave  me  some  additional  facts  for  use  against 
the  President.  He  said : 

"What  you  said  about  the  dreadnoughts  authorized 
more  than  a  year  ago  not  being  begun  until  next  Sep- 
tember is  true  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  does  not  go  far 
enough.  Those  dreadnoughts  will  not  be  begun  until 
next  January  or  February.  The  ships  now  building 
at  Mare  Island  and  Brooklyn  will  not  be  completed 
until  next  September,  but  the  ships  authorized  in 
March,  1915,  are  to  be  so  much  larger  than  anything 
we  have  ever  built  that  the  ways  in  each  shipyard  will 
have  to  be  considerably  extended  before  the  keels  can 
be  laid,  and  it  will  require  four  or  five  months  to 
extend  the  ways." 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is — and  I  assert  this  upon 
the  basis  of  first-hand  information — that  the  Presi- 
dent's own  party  in  Congress  is  bursting  with 
disloyalty  to  him.  It  is  a  loathsome,  political  row. 
Principles  and  politics  are  so  mixed  that  it  is  difficult 
to  tell  where  one  ends  and  the  other  begins.  Some 


QUESTIONS  FOR  THE  PRESIDENT    113 

of  the  biggest  men  in  the  President's  own  party  say 
things  to  me  about  him  that  I  would  not  think  of 
asserting  upon  my  own  responsibility.  One  of  them 
said:  "The  President  would  be  the  greatest  traitor 
this  country  ever  produced  if  he  really  feared  attack, 
yet  did  no  more  to  be  ready  to  repel  it  than  he  is 
doing.  The  President,  however,  is  not  a  traitor.  He 
knows  we  shall  have  no  war  with  any  European  power 
unless  he  makes  one."  I  asked  another  Democrat  of 
national  reputation  a  question  which,  because  of  its 
bearing  upon  international  relations,  it  would  be  unwise 
to  quote,  and  the  answer  that  he  gave  me  was  not  only 
flavored  with  profanity,  but  also  with  scorching  criti- 
cism of  the  President.  Yet,  when  I  toned  down  the 
utterances  of  some  of  the  most  prominent  members 
of  the  President's  own  party,  and  ventured  to  express 
before  a  committee  of  Congress  the  opinion  that  the 
President  was  insincere  in  laying  so  much  stress  upon 
the  possibility  that  we  shall  be  attacked,  I  was  treated 
by  the  chairman  and  one  or  two  others  as  if  I  had 
committed  a  reprehensible  act. 

I  can  say  this  for  Congress,  from  my  personal 
knowledge:  That  part  of  it  which  belongs  to  the 
Democratic  party  is  largely  composed  of  cowards. 
They  talk  one  way  in  private  and  another  way  in 
public.  The  President  is.  a  better  politician  than  they 
are,  and  when  he  swings  the  lash  they  run.  The  Presi- 
dent is  a  better  politician  than  they  are,  first,  because 
he  has  more  courage,  and,  second,  because  he  is  a 
better  judge  of  men.  He  measured  with  deadly 
accuracy  the  Democratic  membership  of  the  house 
when,  in  the  face  of  the  statement  made  to  him  by 
Speaker  Clark  and  others  that  the  house  stood  at  least 
two  to  one  in  favor  of  warning  Americans  off  armed 


114         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

merchantmen,  he  nevertheless  publicly  declared  his 
belief  that  the  statement  was  "false"  and  called  upon 
Congress  to  put  itself  upon  record.  The  house  crawled. 
The  house  had  no  courage.  It  was  too  busy  playing 
politics.  Nor  was  it  good  politics,  even  from  a  fac- 
tional Democratic  point  of  view.  Nothing  is  good 
politics  that  fails.  The  house,  after  having  declared, 
through  its  leaders,  that  it  was  opposed  to  the  Presi- 
dent, nevertheless  gave  him  what  was  considered  at 
home  and  abroad  an  endorsement  of  his  policy  with 
regard  to  armed  merchantmen. 

President  Wilson,  wavering  back  and  forth  as  he  is 
between  "preparedness"  and  what,  eighteen  months 
ago  he  would  have  called  sanity,  is  much  more  entitled 
to  sympathetic  consideration  than  is  the  Democratic 
party  in  Congress.  The  President  started  out  right 
by  opposing  "preparedness."  He  is  no  longer  opposing 
it  unless  such  acts  as  the  appointment  of  a  pacificist 
Secretary  of  War  may  be  regarded  as  opposition.  But 
consider  what  are  the  motives  and  impulses  surging 
within  him  and  without  him.  The  President  is  human. 
It  is  human  to  be  ambitious.  An  ambitious  man  who 
is  in  the  White  House  for  one  term  usually  wants  to 
remain  another  term.  If  a  considerable  part  of  the 
country,  particularly  in  the  East,  had  not  been  fright- 
ened with  the  bogey  of  war,  President  Wilson  might 
reasonably  have  looked  forward  to  reelection  upon  a 
platform  which  contemplated  no  unusual  additions 
to  the  army  and  navy.  But  the  big  interests  that  have 
long  wanted  great  armaments  to  safeguard  their 
present  and  prospective  foreign  investments  saw  in 
the  fate  of  Belgium  an  opportunity  to  get  great  ar- 
maments by  creating  fear.  And  the  great  interests  that 
are  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  munitions  of  war 


QUESTIONS  FOR  THE  PRESIDENT    115 

also  saw  their  opportunity.  A  good  many  honest  per- 
sons became  frightened  and  some  of  them  formed 
"leagues"  for  the  defense  of  America. 

Yet,  all  of  these  things  might  not  have  swerved 
the  President  if  Mr.  Roosevelt  had  not  begun,  with 
savage  slashes,  to  capitalize  this  fear  for  his  own 
political  purposes.  First,  the  President  was  de- 
nounced by  Mr.  Roosevelt  for  not  advocating 
"preparedness."  When  the  President  did  advocate 
"preparedness"  he  was  again  denounced  by  Mr.  Roose- 
velt for  not  advocating  more  of  it.  The  Mr.  Roosevelt 
referred  to,  by  the  way,  is  the  same  gentleman  who, 
as  President,  in  1906,  advised  Congress,  that  in  his 
opinion  it  was  not  desirable  to  increase  the  size  of  the 
navy;  that  we  should  content  ourselves  with  replacing 
ships  as  they  might  become  incapacitated  by  age. 

Some  of  us  have  known,  at  least  since  the  days  of 
Emerson,  that  "The  President  pays  dearly  for  his 
White  House."  There  is  but  one  way  in  which  a 
President  can  pay.  It  is  in  the  sacrifice  to  political 
expediency  of  his  own  honest  opinions.  That  is  pre- 
cisely what  Mr.  Wilson  appears  to  have  done  in  the 
matter  of  "preparedness."  I  should  hesitate  to  pass 
judgment  upon  him  if  he  had  not  passed  judgment 
upon  himself.  The  dreadnoughts  authorized  more 
than  a  year  ago,  but  not  to  be  started  until  next  winter ; 
the  66  other  ships  which  are  leisurely  building;  the 
judicial  juggling  of  Secretaries  of  War  to  get  a  mili- 
tarist out  and  a  pacificist  in;  the  bald  statement  that 
nobody  seriously  believes  this  country  could  be  invaded 
— these  and  many  other  acts  and  words  that  might  be 
cited  show  where  the  President  really  stands. 

If  Mr.  Wilson  had  been  made  of  sterner  stuff  it  is 
doubtful  if  he  could  ever  have  reached  the  White 


ii6         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

House.  Let  us  gain  what  small  comfort  we  may  from 
the  thought  that  since  it  seems  inevitable,  as  Emerson 
said,  that  the  President  shall  pay  "dearly  for  his  White 
House"  that  Mr.  Wilson  seems  determined  to  get  back 
all  the  change  he  can.  While  calling  for  more  dread- 
noughts, he  delays  the  beginning  of  those  ordered  long 
ago.  Sixty-six  other  ships  lazily  lie  on  the  ways.  He 
assures  us  we  are  in  no  danger  of  invasion.  What 
more  can  the  poor  man  do  and  hold  his  White  House? 

It  is  the  fashion  in  Congress  to  accuse  the  President 
of  assuming  a  tyrannical  attitude  toward  the  national 
legislature  in  general  and  the  Democratic  members  of 
it  in  particular.  One  of  the  best  known  Democrats 
in  Congress  said  to  me:  "Tyrants  gather  around 
themselves  two  kinds  of  persons — courtiers  and 
cowards."  Another  man,  equally  well  known,  said: 
"You  writers  are  largely  to  blame  for  the  fact  that  the 
President  is  assuming  powers  that  the  constitution  does 
not  give  him,  and  for  the  further  fact  that  the  Con- 
gress is  losing  powers  that  are  plainly  vested  in  it 
by  the  constitution.  You  are  always  exalting  the 
Presidency  and  belittling  Congress.  The  people  are 
beginning  to  believe  that  Congress  is  an  inferior  body, 
of  less  importance  than  the  President.  I  well  remem- 
ber when  Mr.  Roosevelt  was  in  the  White  House 
that  some  of  my  constituents  used  to  say  when  I  went 
home:  'Well,  you  have  a  man  in  the  White  House 
now  who  can  make  you  fellows  do  as  he  tells  you.' ' 

These  are  interesting  observations.  Mr.  Wilson, 
it  is  true,  is  well  equipped  with  cowards  and  courtiers, 
but  it  may  be  worth  mentioning  that  he  did  not  select 
them  and  place  them  in  Congress.  Not  every  man 
in  Congress,  by  any  means,  is  a  coward,  and  no  one 
need  be  who  has  the  courage  to  stand  for  the  right, 


QUESTIONS  FOR  THE  PRESIDENT   117 

as  he  sees  it,  regardless  of  consequences.  Nor  can  it 
be  truthfully  said,  in  my  opinion,  that  Mr.  Wilson 
is  a  tyrant.  That  he  is  an  intellectual  aristocrat  is 
probably  true.  That  he  has  a  good  deal  of  contempt 
for  some  of  the  weaklings  in  his  own  party  is  also 
probably  true.  I  know  of  no  reason  why  he  should 
not  have  such  contempt.  Naturally,  in  playing  politics 
with  these  gentlemen,  he  adapts  his  tactics  to  their 
measure.  Against  their  weaknesses  and  their  coward- 
ice he  pits  his  own  daring.  Having  been  officially 
informed  that  the  house  was  two  to  one  against  him 
on  the  question  of  whether  Americans  should  be 
warned  against  riding  on  armed  merchantmen,  he  pub- 
licly flung  the  word  "false"  at  the  statement  and  chal- 
lenged the  house  to  go  on  record.  The  house  cringed. 
The  house,  by  its  timidity,  placed  its  own  leaders  in 
the  attitude  of  gentlemen  who  did  not  know  what 
they  were  talking  about. 

Did  the  President  thereby  become  a  tyrant?  Non- 
sense! He  had  no  power  to  make  the  house  do  his 
bidding.  His  victory  was  not  due  to  his  own  strength, 
but  to  the  weakness  of  the  house.  The  house  had  the 
votes,  but  did  not  dare  use  them. 

Nor  is  it  true  that  the  Congress  may  rightfully 
place  the  responsibility  for  its  declining  powers  upon 
the  press.  Congress  is  itself  to  blame.  Congress  will 
be  respected  and  respectable  the  moment  it  has  the 
courage  to  exercise  its  constitutional  powers.  These 
powers  are  great.  Against  them,  when  used,  no  Presi- 
dent can  prevail. 

At  this  moment  there  is  enough  irrefutable  evi- 
dence before  Congress  to  block,  if  it  were  heeded,  the 
"preparedness"  program.  The  opposition  of  the  farm- 
ers should  be  sufficient.  The  farmers  constitute  a  third 


ii8         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

of  our  population.  Any  radical  change  to  which  they 
are  earnestly  opposed  might  well  be  held  in  abeyance 
until  it  could  be  definitely  ascertained  whether  a  ma- 
jority of  the  people  favored  it.  The  newspapers  of  the 
East  say  that  the  farmers  are  in  favor  of  "prepared- 
ness." The  farmers  themselves  say  they  are  not.  The 
farmers  themselves  have  told  Congress  they  are  op- 
posed to  any  increase  whatever  in  the  army  and  to  any 
material  increase  in  the  navy. 

The  attitude  of  the  farmers  in  this  matter  is  so  im- 
portant that  an  extended  extract  from  the  testimony 
of  a  representative  of  the  National  Grange  before  the 
House  Committee  on  Military  Affairs  will  be  given 
here.  The  hearing  took  place  on  February  8,  1916. 
Three  officials  of  the  grange  made  statements  to  the 
committee.  I  shall  quote  from  the  statement  of  Mr. 
L.  J.  Taber,  of  Barnesville,  Ohio,  master  of  the  Ohio 
State  Grange  and  a  representative  of  the  National 
Grange.  Here  is  the  statement: 

"MR.  TABER:  I  wish  to  state,  as  you  gentlemen 
have  probably  noticed,  that  there  are  three  classes  of 
people  who  have  come  before  this  committee  oppos- 
ing the  present  propaganda  of  preparedness — first, 
those  who  are  opposed  to  war  in  any  form,  those  who 
believe  that  there  never  was  an  honorable  war  or  a 
dishonorable  peace.  We  are  not  of  that  class. 

"The  second  class  are  those  who  come  here  op- 
posing preparedness  because  they  have,  possibly,  sel- 
fish or  other  motives,  and  who  are  opposed  to  the  use 
of  an  efficient  or  strong  military  power  because  it 
might  be  used  to  maintain  order,  and  in  preventing 
sometimes  the  fruits  of  strikes,  and  the  like.  We  are 
not  of  that  class. 

"There  is  a  third  class  who  come  here  opposing 


'QUESTIONS  FOR  THE  PRESIDENT   119 

preparedness  because  they  really  believe  that  at  the 
present  time,  that  the  conditions  surrounding  us  do 
not  demand  an  increase  of  the  Army  and  the  Navy. 

"I  wish  to  say  you  are  probably  all  aware  of  this 
fact,  that  the  charge  has  been  made  in  the  eastern  and 
western  metropolitan  papers  that  the  agricultural  sec- 
tions of  the  great  middle  West  are  deficient  in  patriot- 
ism, but  I  think  you  will  agree  that  such  is  not  the 
truth,  and  that  the  record  will  show  that  the  enlist- 
ments from  among  the  farmers  of  America  have  been 
greater  than  those  from  the  centers  of  population,  and 
I  dare  say  in  the  future  the  enlistments  from  the 
farmers  in  the  great  agricultural  districts  will  be 
greater  than  the  enlistments  in  the  great  centers  of 
population. 

"The  farmers  of  this  country  are  unanimous  on  this 
proposition  in  regard  to  a  great  military  increase  at 
the  present  time.  It  is  not  the  result  of  a  lack  of 
patriotism;  it  is  not  because  they  are  advocates  of 
peace  at  any  price,  but,  my  friends,  it  is  because  they 
know  why,  or  at  least  think  they  know  why,  they  are 
opposed  to  this  great  increase  at  the  present  time. 

"I  think  you  understand  the  organizations  that 
exist  among  the  farmers — the  local  organizations,  the 
county  organizations,  the  State  organizations,  and  the 
National  organization.  .1  am  speaking  directly  for 
the  grange.  These  questions  have  been  discussed  from 
the  subordinate  to  the  national  body,  and  a  vast  per- 
centage of  the  farmers  represented  in  an  organized 
capacity  in  this  organization  are  opposed  to  a  great 
increase  in  the  Army  or  the  Navy. 

"At  the  Oakland  convention  the  National  Grange 
went  on  record  in  connection  with  this  matter,  and  I 
will  read  you  the  resolutions  unanimously  adopted  at 


120        INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

that  convention,  at  which  32  States  were  represented, 
and  after  that  question  had  been  discussed  in  the 
subordinate  bodies." 

"THE  CHAIRMAN:  When  were  those  resolutions 
adopted  ?" 

"MR.  TABER:  Those  resolutions  were  adopted  at 
the  Oakland  convention  of  the  National  Grange,  after 
a  full  discussion,  on  the  i6th  of  November,  1915." 

"MR.  KAHN:  You  mean  Oakland,  Cal?" 

"MR.  TABER  :  Yes,  sir.  Thirty-two  States  were 
represented,  and  on  roll  call,  after  being  discussed  by 
nine  gentlemen,  the  resolutions  were  unanimously 
adopted. 

"The  resolutions  adopted  were  as  follows: 

"  'Whereas  there  is  widespread  agitation  for  the 
increase  of  the  Army  and  Navy,  involving  a  huge  ex- 
penditure of  money,  upon  the  pretext  and  supposi- 
tion that  they  may  be  needed  to  defend  this  nation 
against  attack  from  other  nations;  and  this  urgent 
plea — under  the  name  of  preparedness — is  being  advo- 
cated by  special  interests  that  will  be  financially  bene- 
fited thereby ;  by  those  who,  not  directly  benefited,  but 
who,  through  special  privilege  have  amassed  great 
wealth  and  who  wish  to  increase  the  Army  for  their 
protection;  by  those  who,  from  training,  have  a  taste 
for  militarism;  and  by  metropolitan  newspapers  in- 
fluenced by  the  foregoing  classes,  and  by  their  adver- 
tising patronage;  and 

"  'Whereas  the  reply  to  it  all  is : 

"*(i)  All  the  large  nations  of  the  world  from 
whom  the  United  States  has  any  reason  whatever  to 
fear  in  its  present  state  of  preparedness,  are  slaughter- 
ing each  other  and  daily  growing  weaker  physically 
and  financially;  one-half  their  fighting  force  is  already 


QUESTIONS  FOR  THE  PRESIDENT    121 

killed  or  maimed  and  crippled,  and,  within  the  prob- 
able duration  of  the  war,  in  the  end  will  be  in  a 
pitiable  and  helpless  condition.  And  it  is  against  these 
helpless  nations  that  selfishness  and  men  who  have 
lost  their  heads  and  been  carried  off  their  feet  are 
crying  out  for  preparedness.  This  world's  war  will 
close  with  public  sentiment  against  war  as  a  means  of 
settling  disputes. 

"'(2)  A  nation  on  the  eastern  continent  sur- 
rounded by  other  nations  may  be  forced  to  arm  so 
long  as  neighboring  nations  continue  to  do  so.  But 
the  United  States  is  separated  from  them  by  wide 
oceans  far  from  their  base  of  supplies,  and  the  rea- 
son for  a  nation  in  Europe  or  Asia  arming  does  not 
apply  to  us. 

"'(3)  Preparedness  that  will  make  us  efficient 
and  strong  in  time  of  peace  as  well  as  war  is  a  wise, 
economic,  industrial,  and  educational  policy  that  will 
increase  opportunity,  encourage  thrift  and  industry, 
increasing  the  number  of  home  owners  and  tending  to 
make  a  prosperous,  happy  and  contented  people.  In- 
stead of  following  a  military  policy  that  ruined  the 
civilization  of  Rome  and  Spain,  and  is  now  destroying 
that  of  the  other  nations  of  Europe,  we  should  learn 
wisdom,  and  that  the  victories  of  peace  are  greater 
than  the  victories  of  war.  The  $5,000,000,000  con- 
templated to  be  spent  on  the  Army  and  Navy,  at 
$5,000  per  mile,  would  build  1,000,000  miles  of  macad- 
amized pikes  in  the  United  States,  crossing  it  500 
times  from  ocean  to  ocean,  or  from  its  northern  to  its 
southern  boundary,  putting  the  money  among  the  peo- 
ple, tending  to  make  them  prosperous,  happy  and  con- 
tented, to  love  their  nation  and  ready  to  defend  it. 
With  such  a  road  system  an  unlimited  number  of  men 


122         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

could  be  transferred  in  motor  cars  and  concentrated 
quickly  where  needed. 

"  'We  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  regular 
soldier  has  no  wife,  is  not  allowed  to  marry,  has 
nothing  to  defend,  and  the  volunteer  soldier  in  times 
of  war  has  ever  excelled  him — the  regular  soldier  in 
time  of  war  permanently  dropping  out  of  sight.  They 
were  whipped  at  the  first  battle  of  Manassas,  in  our 
late  war,  by  volunteers  and  were  never  heard  of  after- 
wards. 

"  'Whereas  we  hope  the  time  will  soon  come  when 
democratic  ideals  will  prevail  all  over  the  world ; 
when  kings,  kaisers,  and  czars  shall  be  no  more  and 
their  crimes  shall  be  memories  of  a  past  age;  when  the 
dove  of  peace,  like  a  winged  messenger  of  Heaven, 
shall  hover  over  all  the  earth ; 

"  'Whereas  should  all  profit  be  taken  away  from  the 
manufacture  of  armor  plate  and  munitions  of  war  and 
supplies  by  Government  manufacture  or  control  of 
profits,  we  believe  that  much  of  this  clamor  for  "pre- 
paredness" would  soon  cease:  Therefore,  be  it 

"  'Resolved,  Until  universal  peace  is  established,  we 
favor  the  manufacture  of  its  own  munitions  of  war  by 
the  Federal  Government. 

"  'Resolved,  That  we  are  opposed  to  any  increase 
in  the  standing  Army  or  any  material,  increase  in  the 
Navy. 

"  'Resolved,  That  we  approve  the  stand  the  Presi- 
dent has  taken  to  maintain  peaceful  relations  with  all 
nations. 

"  'Resolved,  While  we  recognize  the  right  of  the 
Government  to  draft  men  to  protect  the  Nation,  we 
believe  property  rights  inferior  to  human  rights,  and 
that  in  event  of  war  to  repel  invasion  or  to  protect 


QUESTIONS  FOR  THE  PRESIDENT    123 

our  rights  on  a  foreign  soil  we  demand  the  Federal 
Government  shall  assume  control  of  all  transportation 
lines  and  all  plants  that  may  be  used  for  the  manu- 
facture of  the  munitions  of  war. 

"  'Resolved,  That  until  such  time  as  the  confidence 
in  human  integrity  and  human  righteousness  enables 
the  people  of  the  earth  to  maintain  world-wide  peace 
without  the  intervention  of  military  and  naval  police 
forces,  we  favor  the  formation  of  an  international 
police  force  to  be  contributed  to  by  all  adhering  na- 
tions and  to  be  used  under  the  direction  and  control 
of  such  international  court  of  control  as  the  adhering 
nations  may  decide.' 

"The  committee  on  peace  which  submitted  those 
resolutions  to  the  convention  was  made  up  from  the 
following:  Messrs.  W.  N.  Cady,  L.  J.  Taber,  J.  D. 
Ream,  and  Mrs.  Alice  Young,  Mrs  Delia  Culbertson, 
and  Mrs.  Carrie  R.  Holmes. 

"These  resolutions  appear  in  the  journal  of  pro- 
ceedings of  the  convention,  beginning  at  page  167. 

"This,  as  was  stated,  is  in  a  measure  the  attitude 
we  find  in  the  rural  sections.  We  think  possibly 
there  may  be  one  other  reason  for  the  psychology 
of  the  times — the  fact  that  those  in  the  cities  who 
have  followed  the  disastrous  conflict  across  the  water 
have  more  nearly  lost  their  bearings  than  the  men 
and  women  who  are  out  on  the  farms. 

"The  change  in  the  attitude  at  the  present  time  of 
those  who  have  watched  the  conflict,  the  reversal  of 
opinion  by  the  leaders  in  every  walk  of  life,  has  not 
affected  those  out  on  the  farm  as  completely  as  it  has 
affected  those  in  some  other  classes. 

"As  I  have  said,  the  farmer,  being  a  little  more 
conservative,  has  not  been  so  susceptible  to  what  I  feel 


124         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

is  possibly  a  psychological  influence  which  has  changed 
the  attitude  of  many  men  in  positions  of  leadership. 

"So  I  say  we  insist  that  the  greatest  defense  of 
America  is  found  first  in  preparation  for  peace,  be- 
cause war  has  become,  in  a  measure,  a  question  of 
finances. 

"Some  of  you  possibly  have  read  the  extracts  from 
an  editorial  in  a  recent  issue  of  a  German  paper,  in 
which  that  paper  congratulates  the  German  people 
upon  the  fact  that  both  England  and  the  United  States 
were  preparing  to  enter  upon  a  policy  of  preparation, 
placing  the  burden  of  taxation  largely  upon  the  peo- 
ple, and  congratulating  themselves  that  they  would 
in  the  future  be  on  a  better  footing  with  those  coun- 
tries. 

"We  believe  that  the  adoption  of  a  policy  by  this 
Nation  which  is  proposed  to  give  us  the  greatest 
Navy  in  the  world  and  a  great  Army,  because  of  the 
fear  of  something  that  probably  will  not  happen,  and 
adding  to  the  burdens  of  taxation  on  the  people,  would 
be  a  greater  weapon  in  the  hands  of  an  enemy  than 
our  proposed  lack  of  preparedness." 

The  Socialists,  who  will  probably  be  found  to  rep- 
resent considerably  more  than  a  million  voters  and  at 
least  5,000,000  of  our  population,  are  opposed  to  "pre- 
paredness," a  great  number  of  labor  organizations  are 
opposed  to  it,  yet  Congress  but  weakly  opposes  the 
President,  who  was  himself  openly  opposed  to  it  until 
the  great  financial  interests,  the  munitions  manufac- 
turers and  Mr.  Roosevelt  spread  so  much  fear  that 
Mr.  Wilson,  apparently,  deemed  it  a  necessary  political 
step  at  least  to  appear  to  bend  somewhat  to  the  storm. 
And  the  newspapers  of  the  East  continue  to  assert  that 
the  country  is  "behind  the  President" — whatever  that 


QUESTIONS  FOR  THE  PRESIDENT    125 

may  mean !  One  has  to  skate  some  to  be  behind  the 
President  these  days. 

The  fraudulent  character  of  the  "preparedness" 
campaign  is  nowhere  better  shown  than  in  the  proposal 
that  this  Congress  shall  authorize  all  of  the  warships 
that  it  is  intended  to  build  within  the  next  five  years. 
This  means  that  if,  in  a  year  from  now,  it  should  be- 
come apparent  to  everybody  that  there  was  no  need 
of  such  colossal  expenditures,  the  hands  of  Congress 
for  the  next  five  years  would  be  tied.  The  hands  of 
Congress  would  be  tied  because,  the  ships  having  been 
authorized,  contracts  would  be  awarded.  Contracts 
are  legal  things  which  the  courts,  if  called  upon  to  do 
so,  would  sustain.  Inasmuch  as  the  two  dreadnoughts 
authorized  more  than  a  year  ago  have  not  been  begun, 
why  this  feverish  desire  to  compel  the  present  Con- 
gress to  deliver  all  of  the  authorizations  that  the 
militarists  demand  for  the  next  five  years?  Are  cer- 
tain interests  afraid  this  artificial  wave  of  fear  cannot 
be  much  longer  sustained?  It  has  always  been  the 
custom  for  each  Congress  to  make  only  current  ap- 
propriations. Why  try  to  cause  this  Congress  to 
legislate  for  its  unelected  successor? 

Also,  they  tell  us  that  we  may  be  attacked  to- 
morrow. If  so,  what  good  will  the  ships  contemplated 
in  the  five-year  program  do  us?  None  of  these  ships 
could  be  made  ready  to  shoot  within  three  years. 
The  last  of  them  could  not  be  completed  until  1924. 

What  is  the  answer  to  these  questions?  There 
is  but  one  answer.  The  "preparedness"  campaign  is 
fraudulent. 

That  is  the  answer. 


CHAPTER  VII 

BEWARE  OF  THE  "MOVIE" 

ONE  great  moving  picture  play  has  swept  over  the 
United  States  as  a  storm-cloud  rilled  with  light- 
ning might  drive  over  the*  land.  Another  "movie" 
of  the  same  sort  has  left  New  York  and  will  soon  put 
the  fear  of  invasion  into  the  hearts  of  millions.  These 
moving  picture  plays  are  frauds.  They  are  impres- 
sive only  because  the  art  of  the  stage  manager  and  the 
photographer  almost  benumb  spectators  into  the  be- 
lief that  they  are  portraying  events  that  have  actually 
happened.  On  the  "movie"  screen,  it  is  as  easy  to 
show  Washington  burning  an  orphan  asylum  as  it  is 
to  show  him  crossing  the  Delaware. 

The  story  the  war  "movie"  tells  is  as  simple  as 
it  is  horrible.  During  the  great  war  in  Europe, 
America  was  warned  to  "prepare."  America  did  not 
heed  the  warning.  A  little  later,  New  York  is  under 
bombardment,  the  sky-scrapers  come  tumbling  down, 
Washington  is  captured  and  the  United  States  is  com- 
pelled to  buy  peace  at  the  price  of  an  enormous  in- 
demnity. 

I  have  observed  how  these  plays  affect  spectators. 
People  seem  dazed,  and  leave  the  theater  in  a  sober 
mood.  I  have  heard  people  say:  "That  shows  what 
may  happen  to  us  if  we  do  not  prepare." 

When  the  Civil  War  closed,  the  "movie"  had  not 
126 


BEWARE  OF  THE  WAR  "MOVIE"     127 

been  invented.     If  it  had  been,  why  could  not  such  a 
play  as  this  have  been  put  on : 

ACT  i — SCENE  i. 

General  Grant  shown  in  the  act  of  passionately  ad- 
dressing multitudes  in  New  York,  Chicago,  and  other 
cities.  "We  must  keep  our  great  army  and  navy  in- 
tact," said  he.  "Europe  will  not  fail  to  strike  at  us 
after  the  north  and  the  south  have  worn  themselves 
out  fighting  each  other." 

ACT  I — SCENE  2. 

Populace  shown  in  the  act  of  going  to  sleep.  "Gen- 
eral Grant  is  a  dreamer."  Grant  bemoans  the  stu- 
pidity of  his  countrymen,  but  can  do  nothing. 

ACT  II — SCENE   I. 

Cable  operator  shown  in  the  act  of  taking  a  cable- 
gram from  Europe.  "France  and  England  have  de- 
clared war  on  America.  Warships  convoying  troop- 
ships have  sailed  for  the  United  States." 

ACT  II — SCENE  2. 

President  Grant  reads  to  his  cabinet  the  cablegram 
announcing  the  declaration  of  war.  Every  face  turns 
white.  Our  navy  has  been  permitted  to  rot  at  the 
docks.  Our  army  has  melted  away.  There  is  nothing 
to  do  but  to  improvise  ,an  army  of  raw  recruits.  Who 
shall  lead  them?  "I  am  the  commander  in  chief  of 
the  army,"  says  President  Grant,  "and  I  will  lead 
our  army  in  person."  Cabinet  officers  cry,  "No,  no, 
you  shall  not  thus  sacrifice  yourself.  The  people, 
against  your  advice,  let  the  splendid  army  you  once  led 
dwindle  to  a  miserable  25,000 — now  let  them  pay  the 
penalty."  Grant  says :  "I  must  do  the  best  with  what 
soldiers  we  have.  I  shall  lead  the  army." 


128         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

ACT  III — SCENE  I. 

General  Grant  shown  at  the  head  of  his  "army" 
near  New  York.  Foreign  ships  appear  in  the  distance. 
Troops  come  ashore  and  are  engaged  by  the  Ameri- 
cans. Grant  tries  to  rally  his  raw  recruits,  but  they 
are  no  match  for  the  seasoned  Europeans.  Foreigners 
gain  a  foothold  on  shore  and  push  back  the  Americans. 
Foreigners  set  up  their  cannon  at  the  lower  end  of 
Manhattan  Island  and  shoot  up  Broadway.  Buildings 
crash  into  the  street,  burying  hundreds  of  persons. 

ACT  III — SCENE  2. 

Grant  fights  stubbornly  but  is  steadily  pushed  back. 
We  see  him  now  at  the  head  of  his  army.  A  terrible 
cannonade  fills  the  air  with  smoke  and  we  lose  sight 
of  him.  The  smoke-cloud  slowly  lifts.  Horrors! 
What  is  this  we  see?  A  stretcher,  reverently  carried 
by  four  men.  Grant  is  dead — a  victim  of  the  unpre- 
paredness  against  which  he  fought. 

No  such  play  was  written  at  the  close  of  the  Civil 
War.  Why?  Because  of  its  manifest  absurdity?  No. 
Far  more  probability  would  have  attached  to  such  a 
play  then  than  is  attached  to  any  of  the  dreams  of 
disaster  that  the  preparedness  gentlemen  are  dream- 
ing now.  We  were  then  weak  from  war  and  Europe 
was  strong  from  peace — now  the  conditions  are  re- 
versed. England  had  shown  her  unfriendliness  by 
permitting  Confederate  privateers  to  be  fitted  out  in 
English  shipyards — an  act  for  which  she  paid,  by  the 
Geneva  award,  damages  in  the  sum  of  $15,000,000. 
The  vain,  stupid  Emperor  of  the  French,  Napoleon 
III,  was  already  planning  to  put  a  scion  of  the  house 
of  Hapsburg  on  the  throne  of  Mexico,  in  defiance  of 


BEWARE  OF  THE  WAR  "MOVIE"     129 

the  Monroe  Doctrine.  The  situation  contained  many 
facts  from  which  a  good  dreamer  of  disaster  could 
have  conjured  up  a  horrible  dream. 

But  nobody  tried  to  scare  America.  As  soon  as 
France  retired  from  Mexico,  our  great  army  was  re- 
duced to  25,000  men.  This  came  about  while  Grant 
was  President.  While  Grant  was  President  our  navy, 
which  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War  was  the  most  pow- 
erful in  the  world,  rotted  away  until  it  practically 
ceased  to  exist. 

Why  was  there  no  demand  for  "preparedness"  at 
the  close  of  the  civil  war?  Why  did  a  great  military 
man  like  Grant  see  no  dangers  for  weak  America  from 
strong  Europe?  Why  was  there  no  "movie"  play 
to  "awaken"  the  people? 

There  was  no  "movie"  play  because  "movies"  had 
not  been  invented.  Also,  some  other  things  that  we 
now  have  did  not  exist.  We  had  no  gentlemen  en- 
gaged in  the  building  of  dreadnoughts  at  $18,000,000 
each.  The  ships  of  that  day  were  small  and  cheap. 
We  had  no  gentlemen  engaged  in  selling  armor  plate 
to  the  government  at  prices  ranging  from  $430  to 
$600  a  ton,  though  the  same  gentlemen  nowadays  sell 
it  to  our  government  at  these  figures  and  to  other 
governments  sometimes  for  as  little  as  $220  a  ton. 
Nor  had  we  any  gentlemen  who  were  intent  upon 
breaking  into  the  markets  of  the  world.  The  rich 
men  of  fifty  years  ago  were  not  seeking  foreign  mar- 
kets, and  therefore  felt  no  need  of  a  strong  navy  to 
help  them.  They  were  intent  upon  the  development 
and  exploitation  of  the  United  States.  They  had 
taken  advantage  of  Lincoln's  preoccupation  with  the 
war  to  put  the  transcontinental  railroad  land  steals 
through  Congress  under  his  nose.  Their  only  desire 


130        INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

was  to  invest  their  money  in  the  United  States  and 
reap  such  profits  as  they  could. 

Now,  everything  is  changed.  The  United  States 
is  becoming,  so  far  as  the  investment  of  capital  is 
concerned,  a  good  deal  of  a  sucked  orange.  In  other 
words,  America  has  changed  from  an  importer  to  an 
exporter  of  capital.  We  no  longer  bring  capital  from 
abroad  to  finance  our  industries.  We  send  capital 
abroad  to  finance  the  industries  of  other  people.  A 
single  instance  of  our  activity  in  this  direction  is 
afforded  by  the  fact  that  a  group  of  men  acting  under 
the  leadership  of  Mr.  Rockefeller's  National  City 
Bank  have  formed  a  company,  the  avowed  purpose 
of  which  is  to  go  abroad  and  seek  monopolies  and 
privileges  in  any  and  every  country  on  the  globe. 

The  most  powerful  American  capitalists  are  frankly 
in  search  of  foreign  investments  and  foreign  trade. 
The  nation  that  has  the  most  of  these  things  is  always 
the  most  hated  nation.  The  gentlemen  who  are  going 
about  it  to  get  these  things  know  that.  They  know 
they  will  need  fleets  and  armies  to  hold  what  they 
hope  to  get.  They  could  not  go  to  the  American 
people  and  say :  "You  will  not  share  in  this  prosperity 
which  we  hope  to  get  for  ourselves,  nevertheless,  we 
want  you  to  provide  a  great  army  and  a  great  navy 
to  enable  us  to  get  and  hold  all  we  can."  So  they 
conjure  up  the  bogey  of  invasion.  They  believe  they 
can  get  the  army  and  the  navy  they  want  if  the  people 
can  be  well  scared. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MR.  ROOSEVELT AND  WASHINGTON  ! 

OO  far  as  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  concerned,  America  is 
^  divided  into  two  classes — those  who  gnash  their 
teeth  at  him  and  those  who  regard  him  as  an  able, 
far-seeing  man.  The  latter  class,  quite  unhappily  for 
Mr.  Roosevelt — but  quite  happily  for  the  rest  of  us — 
is  smaller  than  it  used  to  be.  There  would  be  a  third 
class  that  would  regard  him  as  a  joke  if  the  public  gen- 
erally knew  him  as  well  as  the  late  John  Hay  did. 
John  Hay  was  one  of  Lincoln's  private  secretaries  and, 
later,  Mr.  Roosevelt's  Secretary  of  State.  Mr.  Hay 
has  been  dead  ten  years  but  his  diaries  and  letters 
were  not  published  until  the  summer  of  1915.  (The 
Life  of  John  Hay;  Houghton,  Mifflin  Co.)  Here 
is  a  letter  that  Mr.  Hay  wrote  from  Washington  on 
June  15,  1900,  to  Mr.  Henry  White,  at  the  American 
embassy  in  London: 

"Teddy  has  been  here;  have  you  heard  of  it?  It 
was  more  fun  than  a  goat.  He  came  down  with  a 
sombre  resolution  thrown  on  his  strenuous  brow  to  let 
McKinley  and  Hanna  know  once  for  all  that  he  would 
not  be  Vice  President,  and  found  to  his  stupefaction 
that  nobody  in  Washington  but  Platt  had  ever  dreamed 
of  such  a  thing.  He  did  not  even  have  a  chance  to 
launch  his  nolo  episcopari  at  the  major  (McKinley). 
That  statesman  said  he  did  not  want  him  on  the  ticket 


132         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

— that  he  would  be  far  more  valuable  in  New  York — 
and  Root  said,  with  his  frank  and  murderous  smile, 
'Of  course  not — you're  not  fit  for  it.'  And  so  he  went 
back  quite  eased  in  his  mind,  but  considerably  bruised 
in  his  amour  propre." 

That  was  the  way  Mr.  Hay  wrote  about  Mr.  Roose- 
velt in  1900.  After  Mr.  Roosevelt  became  President 
and  Mr.  Hay  and  Mr.  Root  continued  in  his  cabinet, 
each  played  the  courtier  and  hailed  him  as  a  great 
man.  But  Mr.  Hay's  letters  show  that  he  was  never 
able  entirely  to  conceal  from  himself  the  fact  that  he 
had  a  certain  feeling  toward  Mr.  Roosevelt  that 
amounted  almost  to  contempt.  On  October  17,  1903, 
Hay  wrote  in  his  diary : 

"I  lunched  at  the  White  House — nobody  else  but 
Yves  Guyot  and  Theodore  Stanton.  The  President 
talked  with  great  energy  and  perfect  ease  the  most 
curious  French  I  ever  listened  to.  It  was  absolutely 
lawless  as  to  grammar,  and  occasionally  bankrupt  in 
substantives." 

When  Mr.  Roosevelt  seemed  to  have  this  country 
at  his  heels,  it  was  difficult  even  for  his  political 
enemies  to  consider  him,  as  John  Hay  once  secretly 
did,  as  something  of  a  joke.  Mr.  Roosevelt's  article 
in  the  November  (1915)  number  of  the  Metropolitan 
may  well  be  considered  a  national  calamity.  Mr. 
Roosevelt  therein  reveals  himself  as  a  desperate  man, 
struggling  blindly,  bloodily  and  desperately  to  regain 
his  lost  political  prestige.  The  article  was  evidently 
written  in  two  parts.  The  first  three-quarters  are  de- 
voted to  finding  fault  with  Mr.  Wilson  for  everything 


MR.  ROOSEVELT— AND  WASHINGTON!    133 

in  general  and,  in  particular,  for  his  refusal  to  ad- 
vocate "preparedness."  Then  there  is  another  section 
that  was  evidently  written  after  Mr.  Wilson  yielded 
to  the  fears  aroused  by  the  munitions  patriots.  But 
in  the  last  section  of  the  article,  as  in  the  first,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  refuses  to  be  happy.  So  far  as  the  Presi- 
dent is  concerned,  Mr.  Roosevelt  is  like  the  crusty  old 
lady  who  "was  mad  if  the  cat  had  kittens — and  mad 
if  she  didn't."  To  spend  two  billions,  in  five  years,  as 
Mr.  Wilson  would  like  to  do,  would  not  be  satisfactory 
to  the  Oyster  Bay  ex-President.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  of 
course,  embraces  the  occasion  to  repeat  the  assurance 
that  he  is  devoted  to  peace,  but  the  rest  of  the  article 
indicates  that  he  is  about  as  passionately  devoted  to 
it  as  ducks  are  to  the  desert.  If  confessions  between 
the  lines  count  for  anything,  what  Mr.  Roosevelt  is 
passionately  devoted  to  is  the  White  House. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  never  writes  anything  to  show  how 
great  he  is  himself  without  also  dragging  in  Wash- 
ington and  Lincoln.  This  time,  he  adds  Grant.  Grant 
was  President  when  Charles  Dickens  visited  this  coun- 
try and  commended  the  administration  for  the  manner 
in  which  it  protected  its  citizens  abroad.  Mr.  Roose- 
velt cannot  contemplate  the  present  degenerated  condi- 
tion of  the  government,  in  this  respect,  without  "bitter 
shame."  That  is  too  had.  We  who  live  here  have 
forgotten  what  American  abroad  it  was  whom  Grant 
protected,  but  if  Charles  Dickens  were  still  alive,  he 
doubtless  could  tell  us.  Grant  was  the  man  who  said : 
"Let  Us  Have  Peace,"  and  these  words  are  carved 
in  enduring  marble  upon  his  tomb. 

But  Roosevelt  has  no  particular  admiration  for 
Grant — none  that  would  cause  him  to  drag  the  old 
general's  name  into  an  argument  for  preparedness 


134        INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

without  a  selfish  and  dishonest  reason.  So  far  as 
Grant  is  concerned,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  a  little  farther 
along  in  his  article,  convicts  himself  of  dishonesty 
in  juggling  with  the  general's  fame.  I  quote : 

"Twenty  years  after  the  Civil  War,  we  had  let  our 
army  and  navy  sink  to  a  point  below  that  of  any  third- 
class  power  in  Europe." 

That,  according  to  Mr.  Roosevelt,  was  very  bad. 
But  under  whose  administrations  did  the  army  and 
navy  thus  shamefully  deteriorate?  Well,  two  of  them 
were  General  Grant's.  Grant  was  President  from 
1869  to  1877.  During  Andrew  Johnson's  adminis- 
tration, a  considerable  portion  of  the  army  was  re- 
tained to  meet  possible  trouble  with  France  because 
of  the  occupation  of  Mexico  by  Maximilian.  The 
old  Civil  War  navy  was  still  there,  because  it  had  not 
yet  rotted  away.  But  during  Grant's  administrations, 
the  army  shrunk  still  more  and  the  navy  reached  a 
point  almost  as  low  as  it  ever  did.  Six  years  after 
Grant  retired,  the  contracts  for  the  first  ships  of  the 
"new  navy"  were  let  by  Secretary  of  the  Navy  William 
E.  Chandler,  under  the  administration  of  Chester  A. 
Arthur. 

Don't  blame  Mr.  Roosevelt.  In  the  haste  of  pacing 
up  and  down  the  floor  dictating  a  "vigorous"  article 
in  favor  of  "preparedness,"  a  man  cannot  remember 
everything.  But  if  Mr.  Wilson  had  beaten  Mr.  Roose- 
velt in  coming  out  for  preparedness,  is  it  too  much  to 
suspect  that  Roosevelt  would  have  been  in  favor  of 
"adhering  to  our  ancient  traditions  of  a  small  army 
and  a  small  navy"  and  cited  the  decadence  of  the 
army  and  navy  under  Grant  as  proof  that  Grant,  if 


MR.  ROOSEVELT— AND  WASHINGTON!    135 

alive,  would  be  on  his  side?  It  is  a  pretty  green 
stick  of  wood  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  cannot  use  either 
for  a  stool  or  a  candle. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  roundly  berates  the  administration 
because  it  did  not,  immediately  upon  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  in  Europe,  begin  loading  the  nation  with 
guns.  "If  we  had  done  so,"  he  says,  "we  would  now 
have  been  able  to  make  our  national  voice  felt  ef- 
fectively in  helping  to  bring  about  peace  with  justice 
— and  no  other  peace  ought  to  be  allowed." 

What  would  George  Washington — whom  Mr. 
Roosevelt  so  often  and  so  generously  approves — what 
would  Washington  have  thought  if  anybody  had  told 
him  he  should  prevent  any  peace  in  Europe  that  he 
did  not  consider  just?  Washington  said,  over  and 
over  again,  that  America  should  always  keep  clear  of 
European  rows.  If  he  had  said  that  America  should 
always  stick  its  nose  into  European  affairs,  Mr.  Roose- 
velt would  doubtless  have  cited  him  as  authority,  but 
as  he  said  precisely  the  opposite,  the  father  of  his 
country,  upon  this  occasion,  was  compelled  to  go  with- 
out honorable  mention — or  any  mention. 

But  suppose  Mr.  Wilson,  in  1914,  had  prepared? 
How  could  we  have  made  the  "national  voice"  effective 
in  helping  to  bring  about  "peace  with  justice"?  Mr. 
Roosevelt  always  couples  "peace"  and  "justice"  as  an 
old  waiter,  from  force  of  habit,  couples  "ham"  and 
"eggs'' — but  what  could  we  have  done?  More  dread- 
noughts would  have  been  useless,  since  Great  Britain 
already  has  a  navy  three  times  as  large  as  that  of 
Germany,  and  is  prevented  from  destroying  the  Ger- 
man fleet  only  because  of  the  mine  fields  that  lie  in 
front  of  it.  Should  we  have  sent  a  million  soldiers 
abroad?  Italy,  some  months  after  the  war  began, 


136         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

threw  more  than  a  million  soldiers  into  the  ranks  of 
the  Allies — and  "peace  with  justice"  has  not  yet  come. 
Should  we  have  sent  two  millions  of  soldiers?  Would 
you  like  to  be  one  of  the  two  millions  to  face  the 
guns  of  Germany  ? 

Mr.  Roosevelt  asks  you  to  shudder  over  the  fate  of 
Belgium,  which  he  says,  came  about  as  the  result  of 
her  unpreparedness,  though  in  an  article  in  the  Out- 
look a  few  months  after  the  beginning  of  the  war 
he  said  we  were  in  no  wise  responsible  for  what  hap- 
pened to  Belgium.  On  her  eastern  border,  Belgium 
had  the  best  forts  that  money  and  engineering  skill 
could  build.  Though  Germany  came  with  a  rush, 
Belgium  also  came  with  a  rush — and  stood  off  the 
German  armies  until  France,  which  was  prepared, 
could  come  up.  In  the  light  of  all  that  has  since 
happened  to  other  armies  that  opposed  the  Germans, 
how  badly  do  you  believe  Belgium  was  prepared?  If 
Belgium,  with  all  her  forts  and  her  compulsory  mili- 
tary service  was,  in  Mr.  Roosevelt's  opinion,  unpre- 
pared, can  you  imagine  what  the  United  States  would 
be  if  it  were  sufficiently  prepared  to  suit  Mr.  Roose- 
velt? And,  while  at  Mr.  Roosevelt's  request,  you  are 
shivering  at  the  fate  of  Belgium  and  preparing  to 
answer  his  question  as  to  whether  you  wish  to  fare 
likewise,  turn  these  facts  over  in  your  mind :  Belgium, 
a  nation  of  7,000,000  population,  lies  beside  a  nation 
of  70,000,000.  It  was  but  a  run  and  a  jump  from 
Germany  into  Belgium's  front  yard.  The  most  popu- 
lous nation  that  could  run  and  jump  into  our  front 
yard  is  Mexico,  with  15,000,000.  All  the  other  na- 
tions would  have  to  take  ships  and  come  3,000  miles. 
Germany's  population  is  ten  times  that  of  Belgium. 
If  there  were  a  nation  of  a  thousand  millions  right 


MR.  ROOSEVELT— AND  WASHINGTON!    137 

beside  us,  our  position  would  be  precisely  that  of 
Belgium.     Where  is  the  nation? 
This  also  from  Mr.  Roosevelt: 

"Most  certainly  we  should  avoid  with  horror  the 
ruthlessness  and  brutality  and  the  cynical  indifference 
to  international  right  which  the  government  of  Ger- 
many has  shown  during  the  past  year,  and  we  should 
shun,  as  we  would  shun  the  plague,  the  production  in 
this  country  of  a  popular  psychology  like  that  which 
in  Germany  has  produced  a  public  opinion  that  backs 
the  government  in  its  actions  in  Belgium,  and  cheers 
popular  songs  which  exult  in  the  slaughter  of  women 
and  children  on  the  high  seas." 

Mr.  Roosevelt  is  not  ignorant  of  history  and  he 
therefore  knows  how  reluctantly  the  Germans  em- 
braced militarism  and  its  inevitable  fruits. 

So  far  as  brutality  is  concerned,  Mr.  Roosevelt  ap- 
parently does  not  yet  know  that  war  brutalizes  men. 
He  thinks  that  only  the  Germans  are  brutal.  He 
has  doubtless  never  heard  about  our  own  General 
"Hell-Roaring"  Jake  Smith's  order  in  the  Philippines 
that  every  building  be  burned  and  every  native  more 
than  eight  years  old  be  slain.  Nor  evidently  has  he 
ever  heard  how  American  soldiers  used  to  attach  a 
hose  to  Filipinos  and  fill  them  with  water  until  their 
bowels  nearly  burst.  Mr.  Roosevelt  would  be  per- 
fectly fair  if  he  had  read  all  of  the  newspapers. 
Whenever  he  is  apparently  unfair,  it  is  because  he  is 
a  busy  man — busy  trying  to  break  into  the  White 
House  again. 

Mr.  Roosevelt,  in  this  remarkable  article,  also  pro- 
claims the  discovery  that  every  fat,  flabby  pacifist  is 


138         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

working  against  democracy,  and  declares  that,  if 
democracy  goes  down,  the  pacifists  will  be  "primarily 
to  blame."  Why?  Because  "the  first  and  the  greatest 
of  these  responsibilities"  (of  a  democracy)  "is  the 
responsibility  of  national  self-defense." 

Mr.  Roosevelt,  not  having  a  democratic  hair  in  his 
head,  is  mistaken.  The  first  responsibility  of  a  de- 
mocracy, or  any  other  kind  of  a  government,  is  to  dis- 
pense justice  at  home.  Its  second  duty  is  to  dispense 
justice  abroad  by  treating  other  nations  fairly.  Its 
third  duty  is  to  be  prepared  to  resist  such  unjust 
attacks  as  may  be  made.  Its  fourth  duty  is  not  to  go 
crazy  as  do  some  men  who  go  to  the  police  stations  and 
solemnly  tell  the  sergeant  that  mysterious  persons  are 
always  following  them  to  shoot  them  up.  Sane  men 
occasionally  go  to  the  police  and  get  permission  to 
carry  a  concealed  weapon,  but  sane  men  do  not  fill 
their  pockets  with  pistols  and  wheel  a  cannon  in  front 
of  them  to  and  from  their  work.  When  an  individual 
is  constantly  beset  with  fears  that  "mysterious  per- 
sons" are  about  to  take  his  life,  men  call  him  insane. 
A  nation  can  also  become  insane  through  fear.  Every 
European  nation,  for  twenty  years,  has  been  crazed 
by  the  fear  caused  by  the  piling  up  of  armaments. 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  idea  seems  to  be  that  it  is  the  first 
duty  of  a  democracy  to  go  crazy. 

Mr.  Roosevelt  also  believes  in  conscription.  Un- 
like the  Union  League  Club  of  New  York,  which 
unanimously  adopted  a  resolution  urging  the  gov- 
ernment to  resort  to  conscription,  Mr.  Roosevelt 
avoided  the  use  of  the  word  itself.  Instead,  he 
said: 

"I  believe  in  universal  service.  Universal  service 
represents  the  true  democratic  ideal.  No  man,  rich 


MR.  ROOSEVELT— AND  WASHINGTON!    139 

or  poor,  should  be  allowed  to  shirk  it.  In  time  of  war 
every  citizen  of  the  republic  should  be  held  absolutely 
to  serve  the  republic  whenever  the  republic  needs  him 
or  her.  The  pacifist  and  the  hyphenated  American 
should  be  sternly  required  to  fight  and  made  to  serve 
in  the  army  and  to  share  the  work  and  danger  of  their 
braver  and  more  patriotic  countrymen ;  and  any  dere- 
liction of  duty  on  their  part  should  be  punished 
with  the  sharpest  rigor." 

Wouldn't  this  be  a  lovely  land  in  which  to  live  if 
every  young  man  were  required,  upon  reaching  a  cer- 
tain age,  to  spend  a  certain  amount  of  his  time  each 
year  in  maneuvering  with  an  army  and,  at  the  out- 
break of  any  war  that  might  be  trumped  up,  were 
dragged  from  his  home  and  sent  to  the  front?  Since 
we  have  never  had  such  pleasures,  is  it  not  strange 
that  foreigners  who  do  have  them  at  home  quit  their 
homes  to  come  here?  Here  we  see  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
democracy  at  its  best.  He  would  not  trouble  the  peo- 
ple to  vote  on  the  question  as  to  whether  we  should 
declare  war,  but  war  having  been  declared  by  a  few 
he  would  give  every  man  an  equal  opportunity  to  be 
killed.  Mr.  Roosevelt,  so  it  was  reported  a  few  years 
ago  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  never  denied  by  him,  once 
said  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  that  he  hoped  he  might 
die  on  the  battlefield.  .  How  undemocratic  it  would  be 
for  him  to  crave  an  honor  that  he  would  deny  to 
others.  Nor  does  Mr.  Roosevelt  ever  forget  this  part 
of  his  democracy.  When  in  the  heat  of  battle  in 
Cuba,  he  saw  a  Spaniard  running  from  him,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  democratically  honored  the  poor  fleeing 
peasant  by  shooting  him  in  the  back — and  then 
bragged  about  it  in  a  magazine  article.  His  exact 
words  were: 


140        INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

"Lieutenant  Davis'  first  sergeant,  Clarence  Gould, 
killed  a  Spaniard  with  his  revolver.  ...  At  about 
the  same  time  I  also  shot  one.  .  .  .  Two  Spaniards 
leaped  from  the  trenches  not  ten  yards  away.  As 
they  turned  to  run  I  closed  in  and  fired  twice,  miss- 
ing the  first  and  killing  the  second." 

Having  made  himself  solid  with  American  men  by 
trying  to  provide  each  with  a  bloody  grave,  Mr. 
Roosevelt  closes  his  article  by  seeking  the  approval 
of  women.  Here  is  his  appeal : 

"As  for  the  woman  who  approves  the  song,  'I  Did 
Not  Raise  My  Boy  to  Be  a  Soldier,'  her  place  is  in 
China — by  preference,  in  a  harem  in  China — and  not 
in  the  United  States.  But  she  is  all  right  if  she  will 
change  the  song  into  'I  Did  Not  Raise  My  Boy  to  Be 
the  Only  Soldier.' " 

Mr.  Roosevelt  could  hardly  have  obtained  his  ideas 
about  women  from  his  mother,  who  though  she  died 
many  years  ago,  is  still  remembered  as  a  noble  woman. 
So  far  as  his  important  public  utterances  go,  he  seems 
to  regard  women  chiefly  as  sex  animals.  If  they 
meet  his  approval,  they  must  devote  their  sexual 
powers,  for  a  long  term  of  years,  to  bearing  a  great 
number  of  children.  If  they  do  not  meet  his  approval, 
he  would  hurry  them  off  to  a  harem  where  their  sex 
might  prove  a  delight  to  men.  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  a 
noble  wife.  Where  did  he  get  such  ideas  about 
women  ? 

No  man  can  speak  for  women  about  this  phase  of 
Mr.  Roosevelt's  character.  Only  women  know 
whether  they  are  complimented  or  insulted  by  Mr. 


MR.  ROOSEVELT— AND  WASHINGTON!    141 

Roosevelt's  belief  that  if  they  do  not  raise  their  boys 
to  be  soldiers  they  should  be  put  where  their  only 
duty  will  be  to  devote  their  bodies  to  the  gratification 
of  the  lusts  of  men.  It  seems  as  if  it  would  be  a  little 
cruel  to  send  to  a  gilded  sex-slaughterhouse,  gentle, 
kindly  women  whose  only  offense  was  that  they  wished 
their  sons  neither  to  kill  nor  be  killed;  but  kindly, 
gentle  women  know  best  about  that.  I  know  a  gentle, 
white-haired  woman  of  70  years,  who,  under  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  ruling,  would  be  an  inmate  of  a  Chinese 
harem.  In  a  way,  I  should  like  to  ask  her  what  she 
thinks  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  statement.  I  shall  never 
ask  her,  however.  I  should  be  ashamed  to. 


CHAPTER  IX 

POLICIES  THAT  MAKE  FOR  WAR 

WHEN  war  threatens,  the  danger  may  be  met  in 
either  of  two  ways.  Great  armies  and  navies 
may  be  raised  while  the  causes  that  make  for  war  are 
left  to  operate.  The  other  way  is  to  remove  the  causes 
that  make  for  war.  The  first  way  is  expensive,  un- 
certain and  oftentimes  disastrous.  Whether  the  war 
be  lost  or  won,  it  is  always  lost  in  the  sense  that  it 
bequeathes  to  each  side  a  vast  amount  of  human  suffer- 
ing. Moreover,  there  is  no  certainty  that  any  amount 
of  preparation  can  insure  success.  "Preparedness" 
is  the  secret  of  no  nation. 

The  second  method  of  meeting  the  danger  of  war  is 
cheap,  much  more  nearly  certain,  and  contains  every 
good  prospect  that  can  be  embodied  in  a  political 
program.  Yet  it  is  the  method  that  capitalist  states- 
men seldom  employ.  They  choose  such  national  poli- 
cies as,  in  their  judgment,  seem  likely  to  bring  the 
most  profits  to  the  capitalist  class  and,  when  war 
threatens,  shout:  "The  country  is  in  danger!  Bring 
up  the  guns." 

We  Socialists  take  to  ourselves  no  particular  credit 
for  intelligence  when  we  assert  that  the  capitalist 
method  of  meeting  the  danger  of  war  is  an  exceed- 
ingly bad  method.  It  is  not  bad  for  the  capitalist  class, 
perhaps — or  at  any  rate,  the  gentlemen  who  compose 

142 


POLICIES  THAT  MAKE  FOR  WAR     143 

that  class  seem  not  to  think  so — but  it  is  bad  for  the 
people.  We  Socialists  assert  that  to  remove  the 
dangers  of  war  is  better  than  to  let  the  war  come  after 
having  raised  enough  forces  to  win  it.  We  assert  that 
the  abandonment  of  an  unjust  or  an  unwise  policy  is 
the  -equivalent  of  enough  armies  and  dreadnoughts 
to  enforce  such  a  policy. 

We  are  told,  as  one  of  the  reasons  why  we  should 
vastly  increase  our  navy,  that  we  have  great  insular 
possessions  that  should  be  defended.  President  Wil- 
son specifically  made  this  assertion  in  the  autumn  of 
1915  in  an  address  before  the  Manhattan  Club  of 
New  York.  Every  advocate  of  a  greater  navy  makes 
the  same  argument.  None  of  them  becomes  definite 
and  says  that  to  hold  the  Philippines  we  need  ten  or 
twenty  or  thirty  more  dreadnoughts.  The  nearest 
that  any  of  them  comes  to  being  definite  is  to  say 
that  we  should  always  have  in  the  Pacific  a  fleet  as 
large  as  that  of  Japan,  which  contains  nineteen  dread- 
noughts. They  all  consider  that  the  Philippines  and 
our  other  insular  possessions  constitute  a  danger  of 
war,  and,  in  true  capitalist  fashion,  most  of  them  wish 
to  meet  the  danger,  not  by  removing  the  cause,  nor 
even  by  looking  into  the  right  or  the  wrong  of  the 
matter,  but  by  preparing  to  fight. 

American  possession,  of  the  Philippines  undoubtedly 
constitutes  a  continuous  danger  of  war.  Probably 
twenty  dreadnoughts  would  be  required  to  hold  them 
if  any  nation  should  try  to  wrest  them  from  us. 
Twenty  dreadnoughts  would  cost  about  $350,000,000. 
How  much  would  it  cost  to  enact  a  law  based  upon  the 
following  plank  in  the  platform  upon  which  President 
Wilson  was  elected : 

"We  reaffirm  the  position  thrice  announced  by  the 


144        INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

Democracy  in  national  convention  assembled  against 
a  policy  of  imperialism  and  colonial  exploitation  in  the 
Philippines  or  elsewhere.  We  condemn  the  experi- 
ment in  imperialism  as  an  inexcusable  blunder  which 
has  involved  us  in  enormous  expense,  brought  us 
weakness  instead  of  strength,  and  laid  the  nation  open 
to  the  charge  of  abandonment  of  the  fundamental  doc- 
trine of  self-government.  We  favor  an  immediate 
declaration  of  the  nation's  purpose  to  recognize  the 
independence  of  the  Philippine  Islands  as  soon  as  a 
stable  government  can  be  established." 

This  demand  was  placed  in  the  Democratic  platform 
in  1900,  and  was  repeated  in  the  next  three  national 
platforms.  A  bill  was  introduced  in  the  United  States 
Senate  in  the  winter  of  1916  to  set  the  islands  free 
in  not  less  than  two  years,  nor  in  more  than  four 
years.  So  many  Democrats  voted  against  it  that  the 
Senate  was  equally  divided.  The  Vice-President,  Mr. 
Marshall,  to  his  great  honor,  cast  off  the  tie  by  voting 
for  the  bill.  According  to  newspaper  reports,  how- 
ever, the  President  was  opposed  to  releasing  the  Phil- 
ippines in  less  than  ten  years.  Whether  the  House 
will  pass  the  bill,  and  if  so,  whether  the  Philippines 
will  be  set  free  at  the  appointed  time,  remains  to  be 
seen.  Meanwhile,  gentlemen  are  still  crying  out  that 
our  navy  should  be  increased  to  the  end  that,  among 
other  things,  we  shall  be  able  to  meet  the  danger 
of  war  over  the  Philippines. 

As  common  sense  is  understood  among  capitalist 
statesmen,  the  American  attitude  toward  the  Philip- 
pines may  pass  for  wisdom.  We  Socialists  are  quite 
frank  in  taking  the  other  view.  We  believe  the 
Philippines  constitute  a  danger  which  the  capitalist 
class  recognizes,  even  while  refusing  to  remove  it, 


POLICIES  THAT  MAKE  FOR  WAR    145 

because  of  the  profits  that  certain  members  of  the 
capitalist  class  receive  or  hope  to  receive  as  the  re- 
sult of  the  retention  of  the  islands.  Moreover,  we 
Socialists  do  not  believe  Americans  have  a  greater 
right  to  rule  Filipinos  than  Filipinos  have  to  rule 
Americans.  Gentlemen  who  perceive  any  flaw  in  our 
reasoning  will  do  us  a  favor  if  they  will  point  it  out. 
America's  conduct  cannot  be  justified  by  the  claim 
that  we  are  more  nearly  civilized  than  are  the  Fili- 
pinos. Germans  may  feel  that  they  are  more  nearly 
civilized  than  the  English.  The  French  may  feel 
that  they  are  more  nearly  civilized  than  are  Americans, 
yet  we  should  hardly  welcome  the  conquest  of  America 
merely  because  some  other  nation  might  feel  that  it 
had  outstripped  us  in  progress.  We  may  rest  assured 
that  the  Filipinos  feel  as  we  should  in  their  circum- 
stances. 

Another  reason  that  is  urged  in  behalf  of  a  gigantic 
navy  is  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  The  Monroe  Doctrine, 
in  brief,  is  this:  That  no  European  nation  shall  in- 
crease its  territory  in  the  Western  Hemisphere.  The 
doctrine  was  proclaimed  to  lessen  the  likelihood  of  war 
between  the  United  States  and  European  nations. 
Behind  the  doctrine  was  no  idealism,  nor  any  altruism. 
We  were  not  trying  to  help  the  weak  governments  of 
Central  and  South  America,  which  we  could  not  have 
helped  if  we  had  wanted  to  do,  because  we  too,  a  hun- 
dred years  ago,  were  weak.  We  were  trying  only  to 
preserve  our  own  peace  by  keeping  the  troublesome 
nations  of  Europe  away. 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  has  now  become,  not  a  guar- 
antor of  our  peace,  but  probably  the  greatest  of  the 
war-dangers  that  are  mentioned  by  capitalist  states- 
men. So  long  as  the  doctrine  stands,  it  is  in  the  power 


146        INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

of  any  nation  that  may  see  fit  to  challenge  it,  to  hurl 
us  into  war  at  a  moment's  notice.  It  is  like  a  fuse 
hanging  out  a  window  that  any  passer-by  may  light. 
It  takes  the  preservation  of  peace  in  America  out  of 
the  hands  of  Americans  and  places  it  in  the  hands  of 
others.  A  few  years  ago,  the  Danish  parliament,  ac- 
cording to  the  newspaper  reports  of  the  time,  had 
all  but  completed  negotiations  to  sell  the  Danish  West 
Indies  to  Germany.  Strong  protests  from  America 
halted  proceedings.  Sooner  or  later,  one  or  more 
European  nations — and  perhaps  a  combination  of 
European  nations — are  going  to  try  to  erect  colonies 
in  South  America.  Germany  may  try.  Germany  and 
England  may  try.  When  the  attempt  is  made,  either 
we  shall  have  to  abandon  the  Monroe  Doctrine  or 
%ht. 

Is  it  worth  while  to  fight?  President  Wilson,  in  a 
speech  at  Topeka,  Kansas,  on  February  2,  1916,  while 
urging  the  upholding  of  the  doctrine,  said: 

"So  far  as  dollars  and  cents  and  material  advantage 
are  concerned,  we  have  nothing  to  make  by  the  Mon- 
roe Doctrine.  We  have  nothing  to  make  by  allying 
ourselves  with  the  other  nations  of  the  Western  Hemi- 
sphere in  order  to  see  to  it  that  no  man  from  outside, 
no  government  from  outside,  no  nation  from  outside, 
attempts  to  assert  any  kind  of  sovereignty  or  undue 
influence  over  the  peoples  of  this  continent." 

Why  then  should  we  heavily  arm  to  maintain  this 
doctrine?  If  it  is  no  longer  a  life-preserver,  but  a 
millstone  around  our  necks,  why  should  we  cling  to 
it?  Money  is  the  last  reason  on  earth  why  we  should 
cling  to  it,  but  the  President  says  there  is  no  money 
in  it.  The  President's  spokesman  in  the  Senate,  Mr. 
James  Hamilton  Lewis  of  Illinois,  is  only  one  of 


POLICIES  THAT  MAKE  FOR  WAR    147 

hundreds  who  regard  the  Monroe  Doctrine  as  the 
greatest  of  our  war-dangers.  He  would  not  remove 
this  danger  by  abandoning  the  doctrine — he  would 
meet  it  in  characteristic  capitalist  fashion  with  guns. 
But  in  order  that  there  may  be  no  misunderstanding 
as  to  how  great  a  danger  Senator  Lewis  regards 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  to  be,  I  will  quote  a  few  sen- 
tences from  the  New  York  Sun's  report  of  his  speech 
before  the  Hudson  County  (N.  J.)  Bar  Association 
on  the  evening  of  February  5,  1916.  Senator  Lewis 
said : 

"The  future  troubles  of  America  will  grow  out  of 
the  reconstruction  and  enforcement  of  an  international 
contract  designated  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  The  con- 
flicts of  America  will  not  come  during  this  war,  but 
afterward,  and  will  be  sustained  by  the  combined  en- 
mities of  all  the  countries  now  at  war.  These  coun- 
tries will  deny  us  the  right  to  serve  as  guardian  of 
South  America,  and  they  will  insist  that  if  any  coun- 
try of  South  America  is  willing  that  a  European  power 
should  establish  its  government  in  South  America  it 
will  be  none  of  our  business  to  prevent  it 

"The  desire  for  trade  in  South  America  by  the 
European  governments  and  for  a  new  field  of  ad- 
venture will  cause  a  demand  on  the  United  States  to 
surrender  its  present  -position  with  regard  to  the 
Monroe  Doctrine.  Then  will  come  the  first  conflict 
of  arms. 

"The  European  countries  defying  us  will  bring  their 
forces  to  South  or  Central  America  and  establish 
them,  and  will  challenge  us  to  dislodge  them.  They 
will  know  that  the  United  States  has  not  one  friend 
among  the  nations  which  would  give  a  life  or  spend  a 
dollar  out  of  affection  for  us. 


148         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

"Great  Britain  and  Germany  will  form  an  alliance 
for  commercial  purposes.  They  will  unite  in  opposing 
us." 

Former  Secretary  of  War  Garrison,  while  address- 
ing the  House  Committee  on  Military  Affairs  on 
January  6,  1916,  was  asked  by  Representative  Kahn 
of  California  whether  he  did  not  consider  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  "a  constant  source  of  danger  to  the  coun- 
try?" 

"Absolutely,"  replied  Mr.  Garrison.  "We  must  be 
prepared  to  defend  it  by  arms,  or  abandon  it." 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  is  but  an  example  of  a  kind 
of  facts  that  come  up  in  history  again  and  again — 
the  use  of  a  law  or  a  principle  for  quite  a  different 
purpose  than  it  was  originally  intended.  The  phrase 
"due  process  of  law"  when  inserted  into  Magna  Charta 
was  placed  there  to  protect  the  people  against  abuses 
from  the  king.  In  America,  where  the  common  law 
of  England  is  used,  great  corporations  use  the  "due 
process  of  law"  phrase  to  nullify  laws  enacted  by 
public  demand  to  compel  corporations  to  pay  more 
taxes  or  charge  less  for  their  commodities.  In  like 
manner,  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  which  was  devised  to 
insure  the  peace  of  America,  is  retained  after  it  has 
become  a  positive  menace,  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  American  capitalists  would  hold  the  Western 
Hemisphere  as  their  own  private  preserve.  President 
Wilson  spoke  only  a  part  of  the  truth  when  he  said 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  offered  no  financial  advantage 
to  the  United  States.  This  doctrine,  it  is  true,  offers 
to  the  American  people  no  possibility  of  financial  gain, 
but  Central  and  South  America  offer  great  possibili- 
ties of  financial  gain  to  any  group  or  groups  of  capi- 
talists who  may  be  able  to  exploit  them.  Senator 


POLICIES  THAT  MAKE  FOR  WAR    149 

Lewis  put  his  finger  on  the  facts  when  he  said  that  the 
European  "desire  for  trade  in  South  America"  would 
cause  European  governments  to  challenge  the  Monroe 
Doctrine.  It  is  the  American  desire  for  profits  in 
Central  and  South  America  that  causes  American 
capitalists  to  demand  the  enforcement  of  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  even  at  the  cost  of  war. 

The  pretension  that  there  is  anything  altruistic  in 
the  demand  is  absurd.  American  capitalists  daily  and 
hourly  sacrifice  the  interests  of  Americans  here  at 
home,  and  their  treatment  of  Latin  Americans  has 
long  been  such  that  the  United  States  is  hated  from 
the  Rio  Grande  to  Cape  Horn. 

The  pretension  that  any  measure  of  safety  lies  in 
the  exclusion  of  European  governments  from  the 
Western  Hemisphere  is  also  absurd.  The  same  gentle- 
men who  are  clamoring  for  the  upholding  of  the  Mon- 
roe Doctrine  never  tire  of  telling  how  easy  it  would 
be  for  any  first-class  European  power  to  transport  a 
large  army  across  the  Atlantic  and  land  it  upon  our 
shores.  A  large  part  of  South  America  is  as  far  from 
us  as  Europe  is.  Are  we  to  believe  that  the  addi- 
tional one  or  two  days  of  sail  from  Europe,  over 
what  it  would  be  from  South  America,  is  all  that  has 
saved  us  from  invasion  for  the  last  hundred  years? 

When  the  Monroe  Doctrine  was  proclaimed,  Europe 
seemed  far  from  AmeVica  and  throughout  America, 
there  was  great  horror  of  Europe.  We  remembered 
our  two  wars  with  England.  We  remembered  the 
bloody  French  Revolution.  We  remembered  the 
Napoleonic  wars.  Far  away,  upon  our  own  shores, 
we  looked  upon  this  land  as  a  haven  of  rest,  where 
we  should  always  be  secure  provided  we  were  able  to 
keep  Europe  away. 


150        INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

Time  has  brought  great  changes.  We  now  know 
that  Europeans  are  fully  as  civilized  as  ourselves,  and 
the  more  intelligent  know  that  the  governments  of 
France  and  England  are  at  least  as  democratic  as  our 
own  and,  that  after  this  war,  democracy  will  make 
great  strides  in  Germany.  Why  should  we  object 
to  the  establishment  of  European  colonies  in  the  West- 
ern Hemisphere?  Has  Canada  been  a  bad  neighbor? 
Are  we  so  fond  of  Mexico  that  we  would  wade 
through  blood  to  preserve  her?  What  if  the  French 
had  remained  in  Mexico  when  they  came  fifty  years 
ago?  We  know  the  French  people.  Do  we  regard 
them  as  bad  ?  Have  we  reason  to  prefer  the  Mexicans 
as  near  neighbors? 

By  this  line  of  reasoning  it  is  not  intended  to  reach 
the  conclusion  that  if  Germany  were  to  take  over 
Brazil  that,  if  the  capitalist  system  were  to  continue, 
we  might  not  eventually  find  ourselves  at  war  with 
Germany.  The  capitalist  system  makes  wars  by  creat- 
ing their  causes.  But  if  Germany  were  to  seize  a  great 
outlet  in  South  America  she  would  want  generations 
of  peace  in  which  to  develop  the  country.  Would 
it  be  unwise  to  say  that,  if  we  must  have  war  with 
Germany — or  any  other  nation — it  would  be  better  to 
postpone  it  seventy-five  years  than  to  have  it  five  years 
hence  over  the  Monroe  Doctrine? 

A  great  many  things  may  happen  in  less  than 
seventy-five  years. 

Common  people,  the  world  over,  may  come  to 
realize  that  wars  are  made  by  the  conflicting  greeds 
of  the  capitalist  groups  of  the  nations,  all  bent  upon 
obtaining  the  same  profits.  The  recognition  of  this 
fact  is  making  enormous  strides.  The  war  in  Europe 
is  opening  eyes  to  this  fact  that,  up  to  this  time,  have 


POLICIES  THAT  MAKE  FOR  WAR    151 

remained  closed.  Why  then  not  postpone  every  war 
that  insistence  upon  the  Monroe  Doctrine  might 
create  ? 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  is  so  bad  that  our  worst 
enemy  might  easily  be  perplexed  if  it  were  to  try  to 
design  any  single  political  principle  more  dangerous 
to  our  peace.  As  a  reason  for  a  greater  navy  it  is  a 
fraud.  So  is  every  reason  for  a  greater  navy.  These 
gentlemen  say  they  want  a  greater  navy  because  we 
must  protect  the  Panama  Canal.  These  same  gentle- 
men, a  dozen  years  ago,  advocated  the  Panama  Canal 
because  it  would  "double  the  strength  of  our  navy" 
by  enabling  us  to  shift  our  fleet  from  one  ocean  to  the 
other  without  going  around  Cape  Horn. 

John  Hay,  who,  as  Secretary  of  State,  paved  the 
way  for  the  canal,  never  dreamt  that  we  should  fortify 
it.  He  believed  we  should  neutralize  it.  Why  not 
neutralize  it,  by  binding  all  the  world  not  to  close 
it?  Some  nation  might  break  its  promise  and  close 
it  for  a  brief  period,  but  are  we  sure  we  can  always 
keep  it  open  by  placing  force  back  of  it?  Are  we  the 
unbeatable  nation?  Can  we  never  be  vanquished  in 
war?  Have  we  reason  to  be  sure  that  we  could 
keep  the  canal  open  more  days  to  the  century  by 
placing  force  behind  it  than  we  could  by  placing  it 
under  the  joint  protection  of  the  world? 


CHAPTER  X 
"CONSPIRATORS  AND  LIARS" 

THE  President  of  the  United  States,  on  March  25, 
1916,  found  it  necessary  to  issue  a  statement, 
over  his  signature,  warning  the  people  of  the  United 
States  not  to  heed  the  lying  reports  published  in  the 
American  press  with  regard  to  our  relations  with 
Mexico. 

Mr.  Wilson  specifically  said  that  "The  object  of  this 
traffic  in  falsehood  is  to  create  intolerable  friction  be- 
tween the  government  of  the  United  States  and  the 
de  facto  government  of  Mexico  for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  about  intervention  in  the  interest  of  cer- 
tain American  owners  of  Mexican  properties." 

In  other  words,  we  are  told  by  the  President  of  the 
United  States  that  certain  American  gentlemen  who 
own  cattle  ranges,  forests  and  mines  in  Mexico  are 
so  desirous  that  their  property  shall  be  increased  in 
price  that  they  are  eager  to  exchange  American  lives 
for  Mexican  treasure,  and  that  a  considerable  part 
of  the  American  press  is  willing  to  lie  to  bring  about 
the  desired  result. 

These  are  astounding  statements.  Coming  from 
the  White  House,  as  they  did,  they  attracted  wide- 
spread attention. 

But  do  the  American  people  believe  this  is  the  first 
time  that  Americans  have  conspired  against  the  wel- 
fare of  the  people? 

Do  the  American  people  believe  this  is  the  first 
152 


"CONSPIRATORS  AND  LIARS"         153 

occasion  upon  which  American  capitalists  have  sought 
to  hurt  the  poor  that  the  rich  might  be  helped? 

Do  the  American  people  believe  this  is  the  first  time 
that  American  newspapers  have  lied  to  further  the 
schemes  of  the  rich? 

If  so,  the  American  people  would  do  well  to  open 
their  eyes  to  the  facts. 

What  President  Wilson,  over  his  signature,  has 
proclaimed  to  everybody  is  not  a  new  thing,  but  a 
very,  very  old  thing. 

Every  minute  of  every  hour  of  every  day,  the 
capitalist  interests  that  control  this  government  are  us- 
ing it,  in  one  way  or  another,  to  entrench  the  rich 
in  their  riches,  which  necessarily  means  the  keeping 
of  the  rest  of  the  people  hard  at  work  for  a  bare 
living. 

The  American  press  is  controlled  by  the  class  that  is 
fattening  upon  the  masses,  and  daily  defends  what- 
ever helps  the  rich  and  attacks  whatever  menaces  their 
riches. 

The  American  press  has  not  been  doing  these  things 
for  a  day  or  a  week  or  a  month — it  has  been  doing 
them  ever  since  there  was  an  American  press.  It 
could  not  defend  the  capitalist  system,  which  it  does, 
and  do  otherwise. 

The  American  press  has  not  suddenly  learned  to  lie 
about  Mexico — it  has  lied  whenever  and  about  what- 
ever the  great  capitalists  desired. 

It  lies  when  it  says  that  the  tariff  question  has  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  welfare  of  the  great  mass  of 
the  American  people.  The  tariff  question  has  to  do 
only  with  the  determination  of  which  part  of  the 
capitalist  class  shall  have  an  advantage  in  the  ex- 
ploitation of  the  American  people. 


154         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

A  part  of  the  American  press  is  lying  when  it 
flaunts  before  the  people  the  danger  of  invasion  by  a 
European  army,  and  urges  militarism  under  the  mask 
of  "preparedness."  The  President  himself  has  pub- 
licly declared  that  "nobody  seriously  believes  this  coun- 
try need  fear  invasion,"  and  the  President  himself 
publicly  opposed  "preparedness"  until  rival  politicians 
forced  him  to  seem  to  favor  it.  Yet,  lying  newspapers, 
under  the  control  of  the  great  interests  that  want  a 
huge  navy  to  safeguard  their  foreign  investments, 
continue  to  assert  that  we  are  in  danger  of  invasion 
from  a  Europe  so  mutilated  that  it  can  barely  hold 
up  its  head. 

The  American  press  lies  daily  and  hourly  about 
Socialism.  It  heaps  upon  Socialism  all  of  its  scorn, 
all  of  its  derision,  all  of  its  contempt.  Why?  Be- 
cause Socialism  would  harm  the  country?  By  no 
means.  Because  in  the  opinion  of  the  great  capitalists, 
Socialism  would  cut  off  their  great  grafts.  If  Social- 
ism were  a  fool's  dream,  the  capitalist  interests  and 
their  newspapers  would  pay  no  attention  to  it.  They 
care  nothing  for  fools'  dreams.  But  they  care  a  great 
deal  about  anything  and  everything  that  has  within  it 
the  power  to  take  this  country  from  the  few  and  turn 
it  over  to  everybody.  They  know  only  too  well  that 
if  the  great  industries  of  the  country  were  collectively 
owned  by  the  people  and  operated  by  the  govern- 
ment— not  for  anybody's  profit  but  for  everybody's 
welfare — that  the  day  of  the  capitalist  class  would 
be  ended.  By  opposing  us,  lying  about  us  and  slander- 
ing us  they  really  declare  how  convinced  they  are  that 
Socialism,  if  put  to  the  test,  would  do  what  its  ad- 
vocates assert  it  would  do — end  poverty.  Working- 
men  whom  the  capitalist  system  is  sweating  into  four 


"CONSPIRATORS  AND  LIARS"         155 

rooms  and  a  lean  living  may  doubt  whether  Socialism 
would  work.  The  great  capitalists  who  are  sweating 
the  workingmen  have  no  such  doubts.  They  fear  and 
despise  Socialism  as  a  safe-cracker  fears  and  despises 
a  policeman — and  for  much  the  same  reason.  If  there 
were  a  burglars'  press  we  might  expect  to  find  in  it 
an  endless  succession  of  editorials  intended  to  demon- 
strate to  householders  that  a  police  force  would 
inevitably  tend  to  destroy  the  liberties  of  the 
people. 

We  Socialists  welcome  President  Wilson's  warning 
to  his  countrymen.  It  is  altogether  the  most  valuable 
contribution  that  he  has  made  to  the  welfare  of  the 
many  millions  who  look  to  him  to  wield  his  great 
powers  in  their  behalf.  The  lower  tariff  that  Mr. 
Wilson  promised — and  gave — did  not  help  any.  When 
the  President  and  Congress  "reformed  the  currency" 
nobody  worked  fewer  hours,  received  more  wages  or 
paid  less  for  his  living.  None  of  the  President's  other 
"reforms"  did  the  masses  any  good.  But  the  pos- 
sibility of  every  good  is  wrapped  up  in  the  stalwart 
statement  that  American  capitalists,  when  it  suits  their 
convenience  to  do  so,  can  and  do  conspire  against  the 
country's  welfare,  and  that  many  American  news- 
papers, upon  such  occasions,  can  and  do  He. 

The  simple  truth  is  that  the  crimes  the  President 
has  charged  to  these  interests  are  the  smallest  of  their 
crimes.  They  are  the  smallest  of  their  crimes  because 
they  pertain  to  a  single  fact — our  relations  with 
Mexico.  Their  great  crimes  pertain  to  the  continuous 
attempts  of  the  capitalist  class  of  America  to  bulwark 
and  entrench  a  system  that  makes  of  this  country  but 
a  vast  place  where  millions  sweat  out  their  lives  in 
hopeless  drudgery,  while  a  favored  few  draw  unto 


156         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

themselves  such  riches  as  the  world  never  before 
knew. 

The  President  blew  a  blast  across  the  land  that 
should  challenge  every  one  to  thought.  Where  the 
President  stopped  writing,  the  American  people  should 
begin  thinking.  Are  we  to  believe  that  the  rich  men 
accused  of  trying  to  bring  on  war  with  Mexico  are  the 
only  unscrupulous  capitalists  in  America?  Are  one 
set  of  American  capitalists  better  or  worse  than  an- 
other? Is  it  a  recognized  fact  that  while  the  Gug- 
genheims  and  the  Hearsts  are  scoundrels  that  the 
Morgans  and  the  Rockefellers  are  above  reproach? 
Where  is  the  authority  for  such  classifications  ?  Where 
did  any  of  them  ever  get  a  certificate  attesting  his 
unselfishness  and  his  desire  to  give  the  people  of 
this  country  the  full  value  of  the  wealth  they  produce? 

The  simple  truth  is  that,  the  world  over,  capital- 
ists are  capitalists,  precisely  as,  the  world  over,  capi- 
talism is  capitalism.  Every  great  capitalist  is  a  burglar 
working  at  the  pockets  of  the  people.  He  is  working, 
it  is  true,  within  the  law.  So  much  the  worse  for  the 
law.  It  is  the  law  of  which  Socialists  complain.  What 
we  are  trying  to  bring  home  to  the  consciousness  of  the 
American  people  is  that  the  law  was  made  by  capi- 
talists and  operates  in  their  favor.  It  is  not  a  wise 
provision  that  makes  the  nation's  industries  the  lawful 
subject  of  private  ownership.  These  industries  are 
our  life.  They  represent  the  bread  and  meat  and 
and  shelter  of  the  people.  Under  private  ownership, 
it  is  inevitable  that  a  few  shall  own  and  control  the 
industries.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  a  few  are  enor- 
mously rich,  having,  as  they  do,  the  power  to  determine 
what  others  shall  pay  for  the  necessities  of  life?  Is 
it  any  wonder  that  the  rest  are  poor?  What  would 


"CONSPIRATORS  AND  LIARS"        157 

be  the  effect  upon  prices  if  the  government  were  to 
build  factories  and  compete  with  those  who  charge 
exorbitant  prices?  Do  you  believe  such  a  plan  would 
effect  prices  more  or  less  than  do  suits  to  "destroy  the 
trusts"  ? 

Think  these  matters  over  for  yourself.  Use  your 
own  brain.  Do  not  let  the  lying  newspapers  or  the 
conspiring  capitalists  advise  you.  Some  of  the  great 
capitalists  who  denounce  Socialism  are  the  gentlemen 
who,  according  to  the  President,  tried  to  trade  the 
lives  of  thousands  of  young  Americans  for  blood- 
stained Mexican  gold. 

If  this  country  is  to  be  relieved  from  the  poverty 
that  afflicts  it,  and  spared  from  the  fate  that  has 
overtaken  Europe,  the  common  men  and  women  of 
America  must  perform  these  tasks.  The  rich  will  not 
save  it.  The  ignorant  cannot  save  it.  The  alert,  the  in- 
formed, the  intelligent  and  the  thoughtful  must  do  it. 

Perhaps  you  have  never  cast  a  ballot  in  the  interest 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States.  If  not,  might  it 
not  be  well  if  you  were  to  say  with  your  next  ballot 
that  you  refuse  longer  to  stand  for  a  system  that  en- 
riches a  few,  pollutes  the  land  with  capitalistic  con- 
spirators, and  chloroforms  the  country  with  news- 
paper lies? 

Americans,  if  they  will,  can  sound  a  note  that  will 
reverberate  throughout  the  world.  The  need  is  great, 
the  hour  is  dark,  but  what  men  have  done,  men  can 
do — and  minority  parties  have  been  converted  into 
majority  parties.  The  people  of  this  country  can  save 
this  country,  but  they  cannot  do  it  by  voting  with  the 
conspirators  and  the  liars,  whose  only  conscience  is 
their  pocketbook,  and  whose  only  standard  of  justice 
is  the  outer  wall  of  the  penitentiary. 


THINGS   WORTH   FIGHTING  FOR 

THE  lines  upon  which  the  Socialist  party  should 
wage  its  campaign  this  year  are  plain. 

Our  first  task  should  be  to  exert  every  particle  of 
energy  we  possess  toward  preventing  our  government 
from  embroiling  this  nation  in  the  European  war. 

If  we  could  speak  but  one  word  this  year  that  word 
should  be  "Peace."  Precisely  as  murder  is  a  more 
grave  crime  than  robbery,  so  is  the  capitalist  crime  of 
mass-murder  in  war  more  horrible  than  the  capitalist 
crime  of  exploitation  of  labor  in  peace. 

We  should  therefore  lay  the  emphasis  upon  our 
greatest  danger,  which  is  war  with  a  European  power 
over  some  technicality  of  international  law.  We  are 
not  interested  in  technicalities.  We  are  interested 
in  peace. 

We  should  next  concern  ourselves  with  the  task  of 
impeding,  hampering,  delaying  and,  if  possible,  pre- 
venting the  enactment  of  certain  legislation  which, 
though  put  forth  under  the  guise  of  "preparedness" 
is  really  but  the  attempt  of  the  American  capitalist 
class  to  obtain  great  armaments  with  which  to  safe- 
guard both  their  present  and  their  prospective  foreign 
investments  and  by  "enforcing  American  diplomacy" 
to  obtain  additional  markets  and  increased  profits  from 
foreign  trade.  The  American  working  class  has  no 

158 


THINGS  WORTH  FIGHTING  FOR      159 

interest  in  this  sort  of  foreign  trade.  It  is  interested 
in  domestic  consumption. 

If  American  capitalists,  during  the  present  Euro- 
pean war,  could  obtain  control  of  all  the  world's 
markets  outside  of  Europe,  that  moment  would  our 
fate  be  sealed. 

If  necessary,  a  combination  of  all  the  other  nations 
would  be  made  to  destroy  us.  We  could  not  build 
a  navy  strong  enough  to  make  us  safe.  If  we  can 
prevent  our  capitalists  from  building  a  greater  Ameri- 
can navy,  they  will  not  feel  safe  in  investing  so  much 
money  abroad,  nor  will  they  be  likely  to  obtain  and 
hold  so  much  foreign  trade. 

Since  modern  war  comes  as  the  result  of  commercial 
rivalries  between  capitalistic  groups  of  various  na- 
tions, it  will  hold  true,  in  the  long  run,  that  the  danger 
of  America  becoming  involved  in  war  will  be  in  pro- 
portion to  the  size  of  our  foreign  trade  and  the  extent 
of  American  investments  abroad. 

We  should  seize  upon  the  war  in  Europe  as  concrete 
proof  of  the  correctness  of  that  part  of  the  Socialist 
philosophy  that  designates  capitalism  as  the  cause  of 
modern  war.  We  should  seek  to  show  the  American 
people,  by  careful,  patient  reasoning  that  the  same 
forces  that  brought  about  the  war  in  Europe  are 
operating  here.  We  should  show  that  the  same  sys- 
tem that  kills  the  workers  in  war  robs  them  in  peace. 
We  should  use  the  European  war  as  the  door  of  ap- 
proach to  the  public  mind. 

The  average  man  seldom  has  at  any  given  time  more 
than  one  open  door  to  his  mind. 

At  the  present  moment  that  door  is  and  for  months 
to  come  will  be  the  European  war.  It  is  always  easier 
to  make  Socialism  understood  by  attaching  to  it  some- 


160        INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

thing  that  is  more  or  less  understood  by  the  one  ad- 
dressed. Everybody  understands  the  European  war 
came  about  not  because  of  the  assassination  of  the 
Archduke  of  Austria,  but  because  of  the  conflicting 
economic  interests  of  groups  of  capitalists.  That 
is  a  good  deal  for  the  world  to  understand  and  we 
should  make  the  most  of  it 

As  a  party  we  also  have  an  international  duty  to 
perform.  The  war  in  Europe  is  plainly  nearing  its  last 
stage.  Peace  will  probably  come  within  a  year.  We 
should  be  watchful  for  an  opportunity  to  do  whatever 
may  be  done,  if  anything,  to  hasten  the  war's  end. 

Perhaps  no  such  opportunity  will  come,  but  if  it 
should  come,  we  should  not  miss  it. 

In  any  event,  when  the  end  comes,  we  should  unite 
with  our  European  comrades  to  make  certain  that 
the  peace  attained  shall  be  a  just  peace,  a  peace  which 
shall  not  contain  the  germs  of  another  war. 

It  comes  but  to  few  generations  to  live  during  the 
time  of  great  historic  events.  The  fierce  light  of  pres- 
ent events  will  cast  long  shadows  across  distant  cen- 
turies. 

It  is  not  a  pleasant  time  to  live,  but  it  is  a  great 
time  to  live.  It  is  a  great  time  in  the  sense  that  if  ever 
there  was  need  of  such  a  doctrine  as  ours,  it  is  now, 
when  the  development  of  capitalism  is  shattering  half 
of  the  world  and  is  threatening  the  rest. 

Let  us  go  forward  in  this  campaign  with  the  mighty 
resolve  to  work  as  we  never  worked  before;  to  give 
our  message  to  the  country  so  plainly  that  he  who  runs 
may  read,  and  so  persistently  that  he  who  runs  must 
read. 

Fifty  centuries  looked  down  upon  the  soldiers  whom 
Napoleon  gathered  at  the  foot  of  the  Pyramids.  All 


THINGS  WORTH  FIGHTING  FOR      161 

the  centuries  that  are  to  come  will  look  back  at  those 
who  are  now  on  this  earth. 

The  world  is  yearning  for  a  message  that  will  save 
it,  and  we  have  the  message! 


CHAPTER  XII 

WHAT  DOES  AMERICA  LACK  TO  MAKE  IT  HAPPY? 

TTT'HAT  do  we  need?  When  a  child  is  born,  the 
rr  first  concern  of  those  about  it  is  not  to  supply 
it  with  food.  Warm  blankets,  provided  by  the 
thoughtful  mother  weeks  before,  are  wrapped  around 
it.  The  human  body  is  so  constituted  that  it  can 
withstand  only  slight  variations  in  the  temperature  of 
the  blood.  From  birth  until  death,  the  body,  in  winter, 
must  have  clothing. 

There  is  practically  no  limit  to  the  amount  of  cloth- 
ing that  might  be  manufactured  in  the  United  States. 
We  can  produce  as  much  cotton  as  we  want,  as  much 
wool  as  we  want,  and  build  any  amount  of  machinery 
that  may  be  necessary.  We  already  have  a  tremendous 
equipment  of  cloth-making  and  clothes-making  ma- 
chinery. All  we  lack  is  the  right  to  use  it  when  we 
need  it. 

We  need  food. 

If  Texas  were  as  well  tilled  as  Belgium  used  to  be, 
enough  food  could  be  produced  within  its  borders 
to  feed  all  of  our  hundred  millions.  We  also  have 
forty-seven  other  states  and  one  federal  district  in 
which  something  might  be  raised.  We  have  the  land, 
the  men  and  the  machinery  with  which  to  make  an 
abundance  of  every  kind  of  food  that  is  necessary  to 
the  well-being  of  each  of  us.  So  far  as  ability  to 
create  foodstuffs  is  concerned,  no  more  reason  exists 

162 


WHAT  DOES  AMERICA  LACK?        163 

why  any  one  should  go  hungry  or  fear  hunger  than 
there  is  reason  why  anybody  should  fear  a  shortage  of 
air  to  breathe.  Yet,  a  few  days  ago,  I  saw  a  man  faint 
on  a  subway  platform  in  New  York  for  lack  of  food. 

Everybody  needs  a  roof  over  his  head — some  place 
to  call  his  home.  If  it  were  necessary  to  do  so,  the 
number  of  houses  in  this  country  could  be  doubled. 
To  build  a  house  for  every  house  that  exists  would 
give  an  enormous  amount  of  work  to  the  people. 
Millions  of  men  are  always  unable  to  get  an  opportu- 
nity to  work.  There  is  no  scarcity  of  clay  out  of 
which  to  make  bricks— or  of  any  of  the  materials  that 
are  required  to  make  a  house.  Workingmen  have 
made  all  of  the  houses  that  exist,  yet  the  great  major- 
ity of  workingmen  do  not  own  their  own  homes. 
After  they  built  them,  they  lost  them.  Why  are  there 
not  enough  good  homes  for  everybody,  and  why  do 
the  workers,  who  built  all  the  homes,  own  so  few 
of  them? 

Every  house,  except  in  the  4far  south,  must  be  heated 
in  winter. 

The  earth  contains  plenty  of  coal.  The  country  con- 
tains enough  undeveloped  water  power  to  heat  every 
house  in  it  if  there  were  not  a  pound  of  coal — and 
the  cost  of  producing  electricity  is  so  low  that  every 
house  could  be  heated  cheaply.  Why  is  it  so  hard  to 
get  enough  money  to  keep  the  house  warm  in  win- 
ter? Why  are  the  poor  seldom  comfortable  from  fall 
until  spring? 

Furniture  is  necessary. 

What  limit  could  be  placed  upon  the  amount  of 
machinery  we  could  make  with  which  to  manufacture 
furniture?  We  still  have  some  timber  that  the  lum- 
ber barons  have  not  juggled  into  millions  for  them- 


164         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

selves.  Mr.  Edison  says  steel  is  better  than  wood  for 
furniture-making  purposes,  anyway.  Chairs,  tables, 
and  many  articles  of  office  furniture  are  already  made 
of  steel.  Steel  is  made  of  iron.  The  earth  is  stored 
with  iron.  Of  course,  a  good  deal  of  labor  would  be 
required  to  convert  a  large  amount  of  iron,  first  into 
steel  and  then  into  furniture — but  are  not  many  per- 
sons looking  for  work? 

Pianos,  phonographs  and  the  like  are  also  nice. 
Poor  people  like  music. 

They  say  in  New  York  that  the  poor  people,  who 
pay  to  get  in  the  galleries  at  grand  opera,  sit  more 
quietly  and  appear  to  be  more  interested  than  do  some 
of  the  rich  ones  below.  One  cannot  always  sit  quietly 
in  a  box.  Diamonds  scintillate  most  when  they  are 
moved  about  in  the  light.  At  any  rate,  why  should  not 
everybody's  love  for  music  be  gratified  by  the  best  sort 
of  musical  instruments  in  his  home?  A  good  phono- 
graph really  yields  music.  The  cheap  ones  do  not. 
Why  should  not  each  home  contain  a  good  piano  and 
a  good  phonograph?  Because  so  much  labor  would 
be  required  to  produce  them?  That  cannot  be.  Is 
it  not  the  opportunity  to  labor  that  we  so  often  lack? 
When  our  politicians  want  our  votes,  do  they  not 
promise  us  "plenty  of  work  at  good  wages"? 

Education  is  important. 

Only  five  or  six  children  who  enter  the  primary 
grades  ever  enter  high  school — and  still  fewer  ever 
go  to  college.  Why?  If  we  wished,  we  might  have 
ten  times  as  many  teachers  as  we  have.  Why  should 
not  every  child  be  permitted  to  finish  high  school? 
Why  should  we  accept  the  poverty  of  the  parents  as 
an  excuse  for  dragging  a  child  from  school  and  thrust- 
ing him  into  a  workshop?  We  have  millions  of  men 


WHAT  DOES  AMERICA  LACK?        165 

who  cannot  get  work.  Why  make  a  bad  situation 
worse  by  making  children  work?  Children  can  do 
certain  kinds  of  work  and  can  be  hired  more  cheaply, 
but  do  these  constitute  valid  reasons  for  robbing  so 
many  children  of  their  only  opportunity  to  get  an  edu- 
cation? Everybody  regrets  that  the  children  are 
robbed,  and  the  men  who  employ  the  children  feel 
sorrier  than  anybody  else,  but  exceedingly  little  is 
being  done  to  help  the  children.  How  can  the  children 
be  helped  so  long  as  the  little  they  can  earn  is  neces- 
sary to  keep  the  pot  boiling  at  home?  We  Socialists 
say  they  cannot  be  helped  without  so  changing  con- 
ditions that  a  few  rich  men  cannot  keep  so  many  mil- 
lions poor.  We  are  not  merely  sorry  that  the  chil- 
dren are  robbed — we  are  indignant.  Perhaps  that  is 
because  we  are  not  "practical."  The  men  who  are 
profiting  from  the  system  that  robs  the  children  say 
we  are  not  practical.  What  does  "practical"  mean? 

In  addition  to  a  good  phonograph,  and  some  other 
little  things,  each  head  of  a  house — each  grown  per- 
son— should  have  something  else.  He  should  have 
some  land  to  live  upon.  It  would  not  matter  whether 
he  "owned"  the  land.  "Own"  is  such  a  funny  word 
to  use  in  connection  with  any  part  of  the  earth's  sur- 
face. It  reminds  me  of  my  grandfather,  who  once 
pleased  my  childish  fancy  by  solemnly  giving  me  a  star 
that  nightly  hovered  over  our  house.  The  same  power 
that  made  the  star  made  every  foot  of  the  earth.  No 
man  had  anything  to  do  with  either. 

A  lot  of  grown  people  experience  the  same  joy  in 
"owning"  parcels  of  the  earth  that  I  used  to  take, 
when  a  child,  in  "owning"  the  star.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  only  important  thing  about  either  the  star 
or  enough  of  the  earth  to  live  upon,  is  the  right  to 


166         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

use  the  thing,  so  long  as  desired,  without  disturbance. 
All  we  care  about  the  stars  is  to  look  at  them.  To 
shut  off  our  view  would  constitute  disturbance.  All 
we  care  about  the  earth  is  to  live  on  it  and  get  our  liv- 
ing from  it.  For  any  man  to  exact  toll  for  the  use 
of  the  earth  should  create  disturbance.  What  a  man 
builds  on  the  earth  should  be  his  own,  but  the  earth 
was  made  by  the  power  that  created  the  universe,  and 
every  one  born  upon  it  should  have  a  right  to  use  some 
part  of  it  as  long  as  he  wants  to,  without  tribute  to 
anybody.  No  one  should  be  required  to  live  all  his 
life  on  the  same  piece  of  land,  but  no  one  should  be 
permitted  to  hold  any  piece  of  land  a  moment  longer 
than  he  desired  to  live  upon  it.  Fortunately,  there  is 
enough  land  in  this  country  for  a  great  many  more 
millions  than  are  here  to  live  upon  it.  Everybody 
would  have  enough  land  to  live  upon  if  an  interested 
few  were  not  permitted  to  "own"  land  upon  which 
they  do  not  live. 

This  should  be  changed.  We  need  the  earth.  It 
is  important.  It  is  not  important  that  a  few  should 
derive  a  profit,  without  labor,  by  claiming  to  "own" 
certain  parts  of  the  earth.  Private  ownership  of  the 
earth  is  a  bad  principle.  The  right  of  each  to  the 
exclusive  control  of  what  earth  he  needs  is  a  good 
principle.  The  mere  fact  that  the  bad  principle  was 
here  first  is  no  reason  why  it  should  remain  until  the 
last.  We  who  live  upon  this  earth  can  establish 
whatever  principles  of  this  sort  that  we  may  choose 
to  establish.  The  earth  is  not  for  Astor  but  for 
us. 

What  do  we  lack?  What  do  we  lack  to  make  us  a 
comfortable  and,  so  far  as  material  things  can  con- 
tribute to  that  end,  a  happy  people? 


WHAT  DOES  AMERICA  LACK?        167 

Can  you  think  of  anything? 

One  thing  may  be  mentioned.  We  lack  the  de- 
termination to  take  over  the  earth  that  no  man  made, 
and  the  improvements  upon  it  which  every  human  be- 
ing has  helped  to  make,  and  convert  them  to  our  own 
uses,  now  and  forevermore. 

The  Socialist  party  exists  only  for  the  purpose  of 
supplying  this  lack.  We  Socialists  are  trying  to  create 
a  public  determination  to  increase  the  owning  class 
from  a  few  to  as  many  millions  as  there  are  in  the 
nation.  We  perceive  that  every  way  the  people  turn 
they  are  confronted  and  perplexed  by  little  gentlemen 
who  own  this  or  that.  They  are  troublesome  gentle- 
men. They  always  have  their  hands  out.  They  want 
to  be  supported.  They  want  to  pay  as  little  wages 
as  they  can  and  keep  the  rest  that  the  workers  pro- 
duce. 

These  little  gentlemen  are  not  important,  though 
they  think  they  are.  Mr.  J.  P.  Morgan  was  quite 
vexed  one  day,  upon  returning  from  Europe,  because 
when  the  ship  had  almost  crossed  the  ocean  in  record 
time,  a  sudden  storm  made  it  half  a  day  late  in  reach- 
ing port.  The  New  York  newspapers  consumed  valu- 
able paper  and  ink  in  laying  before  millions  of  little 
men  and  women  the  full  extent  of  Mr.  Morgan's  ex- 
asperation at  the  weather.  Mr.  Morgan  is  undoubt- 
edly entirely  conscientious  in  the  belief  that  he  is  a 
person  of  vast  importance,  and  therefore  entitled  not 
only  to  fair  weather,  but  to  be  more  than  royally  sup- 
ported by  the  working  class  of  the  United  States.  It 
is  doubtful,  however,  if  this  is  so.  Mr.  Morgan  is 
not  a  producer  of  milk,  but  a  skimmer  of  cream.  He 
is  important  only  to  himself.  He  is  entitled  to  a  man's 
share  of  opportunity  in  this  world  but  no  more.  Yet 


i68 

if  he  were  to  try  to  live  upon  what  he  is  now  produc- 
ing, he  would  starve  to  death,  unless  relieved  by  alms, 
in  a  few  days.  He  is  no  worse  than  others  of  his  class. 
That  is  not  the  point.  The  point  is  that  the  others  are 
no  better  than  he  is.  They  are  all  skimmers  of  cream. 
The  mere  fact  that  they  would  like  to  continue  to  skim 
is  not  important  What  matters  it  what  they  want? 
They  are  entitled  to  only  a  fair  chance  with  the  rest 
of  us. 

"The  earth  for  those  who  live  on  it"  is  the  ideal  for 
which  we  Socialists  strive.  It  is  all  a  matter  of  chang- 
ing the  laws.  Laws  are  made  by  governments.  Gov- 
ernments are  made  by  people — or  at  least  exist  by 
consent  of  the  people.  When  the  people  begin  to  de- 
mand things,  and  perhaps  to  growl  a  little,  govern- 
ments give  up  a  little.  The  Socialist  vote,  at  present, 
is  a  growl.  The  larger  it  becomes,  the  more  the 
present  owning  class  will  give  up.  It  is  a  good  deal 
like  a  balloonist  throwing  sandbags  overboard  to  keep 
from  going  down.  When  the  Socialist  vote  becomes 
large  enough,  the  day  of  the  important  little  gentlemen 
will  have  passed  and  the  day  of  the  rest  of  the  people 
will  have  come. 

A  million  votes  added  to  either  of  the  other  political 
parties  at  the  next  election  would  have  for  the  people 
of  this  country  no  significance.  Not  one  additional 
good  law  might  reasonably  be  expected  as  the  result 
of  it.  But  if  a  million  were  to  be  added  to  the  Socialist 
vote,  the  ruling  class  of  America  would  hasten  to 
throw  over  sandbags  in  the  form  of  concessions  to 
the  working  class.  These  gentlemen,  when  pressed, 
are  always  willing  to  give  up  something  to  keep  the 
rest.  There  is  no  other  way  of  getting  so  much  in 
the  way  of  immediate,  practical  results  from  a  ballot 


WHAT  DOES  AMERICA  LACK?       169 

cast  at  the  next  election  as  by  voting  the  Socialist 
ticket.  The  gentlemen  in  Washington  and  in  Wall 
Street  always  watch  the  Socialist  vote.  They  know 
what  it  means. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

FACTS  FOR  FARMERS 

"CHARMERS  and  their  wives  and  children  work  too 
•*•  hard  and  get  too  few  of  the  things  in  this  worldl 
that  are  worth  while.  It  is  not  necessary  to  tell  farm- 
ers this.  They  know  it.  The  only  question  worth 
considering  is :  Is  there  any  remedy  for  this  condition? 
Any  Republican  politician  will  tell  you  there  is  a  rem- 
edy and  that  he  has  it.  Any  Democratic  or  Pro- 
gressive politician  will  tell  you  the  same.  The  remedy 
of  each  of  these  gentlemen  is  to  put  somebody  out  of 
office  and  put  him  in. 

For  a  hundred  years  and  more,  American  farmers 
have  been  trying  to  improve  their  condition  by  putting 
somebody  out  of  office  to  put  somebody  else  in.  The 
plan  has  not  worked  well  for  the  simple  reason  that 
the  men  who  were  put  out  and  the  men  who  were  put 
in  stood  for  much  the  same  thing.  Neither  class  of 
politicians  was  willing  to  get  at  and  do  away  with  the 
things  that  really  keep  the  farmer  and  his  family  hard 
at  work  and  poorly  paid. 

Another  class  of  gentlemen  tell  the  farmers  that 
what  is  the  matter  with  them  is  that  they  do  not  know 
enough  about  farming.  They  do  not  raise  enough  on 
their  land.  They  raise  little  because  they  lack  the 
scientific  knowledge  with  which  to  raise  more. 
Scientists  tell  farmers  this.  James  J.  Hill,  who  has 

170 


FACTS  FOR  FARMERS  171 

made  millions — but  not  at  farming — says  the  same. 
What  hurts  Mr.  Hill  more  than  anything  else  is  that 
American  farmers  raise  an  average  of  only  about 
thirteen  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre  when  they  might 
as  well  raise  thirty-three,  as  they  did  in  Belgium  be- 
fore the  war.  It  is  easy  enough  to  understand  why 
Mr.  Hill  feels  hurt.  He  is  in  the  railroad  business. 
He  would  make  considerable  more  money  if  he  could 
haul  thirty-three  bushels  of  wheat  for  every  thirteen 
bushels  that  his  railroads  now  haul. 

That  does  not  much  matter.  The  real  question  of 
importance  is :  Would  the  farmers  make  more  money 
if  they  produced  thirty-three  bushels  of  wheat  to  the 
acre  instead  of  thirteen?  The  easy  way  to  answer 
this  question  is  to  say  they  would.  The  plain  truth 
is  that  they  would  not — and  of  this  there  is  proof. 

The  first  fact  that  American  farmers  should  con- 
sider is  the  Belgian  farmers.  They  raise  thirty-three 
bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre.  Mr.  Hill  tauntingly 
says  so — and  it  is  true.  But  does  this  great  production 
make  the  Belgian  farmers  rich?  Did  anybody  ever 
hear  of  an  American  farmer  emigrating  to  Belgium? 
Is  it  not  a  scandalous  fact  that  the  people  of  Belgium 
are  miserably  poor  and  densely  ignorant?  They  are 
not  to  blame  for  being  ignorant.  They  have  no  op- 
portunity to  learn.  They  are  working  too  hard,  rais- 
ing thirty-three  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre. 

But  we  need  not  go  to  Belgium  to  find  proof  that 
increased  farm  production  does  not  mean  correspond- 
ingly increased  prosperity  for  the  farmer.  We  have 
abundant  proof  in  the  United  States. 

When  the  first  federal  census  was  taken  in  1790, 
ninety-seven  Americans  out  of  each  one  hundred  were 
living  on  farms.  When  the  last  census  was  taken  in 


INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

1910,  only  thirty  Americans  out  of  each  one  hundred 
were  engaged  in  agriculture.  Yet  the  thirty  that  re- 
mained on  farms  produced  more  pounds  of  food  for 
each  person  in  the  United  States  than  the  ninety-seven 
produced  in  1790.  In  other  words,  although  the  pro- 
portion of  the  population  engaged  in  agriculture  had 
been  decreased  two-thirds,  the  remaining  third  pro- 
duced more  for  each  person  in  the  country  than  the 
entire  three-thirds  were  able  to  produce  in  1790. 
Why?  Because  improved  agricultural  machinery  had 
vastly  increased  the  power  of  each  farmer  to  produce 
crops. 

It  would  be  idle  to  deny  that  the  farmer  has  re- 
ceived nothing  from  his  increased  power  of  produc- 
tion. It  would  be  as  idle  to  assert  that  he  has  received 
all  of  his  increased  product.  He  has  received  nothing 
like  his  increased  product.  Like  the  industrial  worker 
in  the  city,  the  farmer  has  received  but  a  little  of  the 
increased  product  that  improved  machinery  has  en- 
abled the  farmer  and  the  industrial  worker  to  produce. 
Machinery  has  increased  the  productivity  of  the  in- 
dustrial worker  by  scores  of  times.  The  industrial 
worker  lives  better  than  his  great-grandfather  did, 
but  he  has  to  worry  more  about  getting  a  job  than  his 
ancestors  did,  and  he  is  still  so  poor  that  he  cannot 
afford  to  live  decently  nor  to  keep  his  children  in 
school  long  enough  to  give  them  a  decent  education. 
And  the  farmer  is  still  poor.  By  keeping  at  it  all  the 
while,  he  manages  to  get  along,  but  it  is  a  hard  strug- 
gle. His  wife  is  compelled  to  work  as  hard  as  he 
does — or  a  little  harder — his  children  are  put  to  work 
when  they  should  be  at  school,  yet  if  one  farmer's 
son  out  of  a  million  happens  to  go  to  a  city  and  do 
well,  grafters  in  the  city  try  to  coddle  the  farmer  by 


FACTS  FOR  FARMERS  173 

citing  the  instance  as  proof  that  in  this  glorious  coun- 
try poverty  is  no  barrier  to  success. 

Let  us  now  look  at  such  a  world  as  no  farmer  ever 
saw.  Suppose  improved  machinery  were  to  make  it 
possible  for  one  man  of  each  one  hundred  of  our 
population  to  produce  all  the  food  that  all  the  rest  of 
us  need.  Suppose  there  were  only  1,000,000  Ameri- 
cans instead  of  30,000,000  engaged  in  agriculture. 
Would  the  million  receive  thirty  times  as  much  income 
as  the  30,000,000  now  receive  ? 

Your  Republican,  Democratic  and  Progressive  poli- 
ticians will  tell  you  they  would.  We  Socialists  tell  you 
they  would  not. 

Let  us  tell  you  what  would  happen.  Twenty-nine 
millions  of  Americans  who  are  now  living  on  farms 
would  be  compelled  to  move  into  cities  and  seek  em- 
ployment in  factories  and  in  stores.  They  would  be 
compelled  to  move  into  cities  because  they  would  be 
unable  to  find  work  on  farms.  They  would  be  unable 
to  find  work  on  farms  because  there  would  not  be 
thirty  times  the  demand  for  farm  produce  that  there 
was  when  30,000,000  farmers  were  at  work.  The  de- 
mand for  farm  products  does  not  so  much  depend 
upon  hunger  as  it  does  upon  the  ability  of  human 
beings  in  cities  to  buy  something  to  eat.  Every  day 
there  are  persons  in  cities  who  are  hungry,  but  they 
create  no  commercial  demand  for  farm  products  for 
the  reason  that  they  have  no  money  with  which  to 
pay  for  them.  They  have  no  money  for  the  reason 
that  they  can  find  no  employment  in  factories,  stores 
and  other  places  where  men  and  women  work. 

Now  imagine,  if  you  can,  what  would  happen  in 
cities  if  29,000,000  Americans  from  the  farms  should 
be  compelled  to  move  from  their  farms  into  the  cities. 


174         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

They  would  at  once  be  compelled  to  compete  for  jobs 
with  the  millions  who  are  already  in  cities,  not  all  of 
whom,  by  any  means,  are  now  able  to  find  work. 
These  29,000,000  would  be  very  eager  for  work.  They 
would  have  to  find  work  or  starve.  What  would  they 
do?  What  could  they  do?  The  only  thing  they  could 
do  would  be  to  say :  "We  will  work  for  less  than  those 
receive  who  are  now  at  work." 

What  would  American  employers  do?  What  do 
they  always  do?  Wouldn't  they  buy  labor  where 
they  could  get  it  the  cheapest  ?  That  is  what  they  have 
always  done  and  are  still  doing.  The  standard  of  liv- 
ing would  have  to  come  down.  The  standard  of 
living  would  come  down.  Every  family  would  take 
twenty-five  or  thirty  roomers,  as  each  city  family  does 
in  Hungary.  Men,  women  and  children  would  be 
huddled  indiscriminately  on  the  floor.  Men  who  work 
nights  would  get  into  beds  still  warm  from  the  men 
who  had  just  arisen  to  work  days.  The  decreased 
cost  of  producing  food  on  the  farm  would  result  in 
cheaper  food,  but  it  would  not  be  enough  cheaper 
to  enable  those  in  the  cities  to  live  as  well  as  they 
now  live,  but  it  would  be  too  cheap  to  make  the  farm- 
ers prosperous.  Then,  as  now,  the  middlemen  would 
skim  off  the  cream.  They  would  pay  the  farmer  as 
little  as  they  could  and  charge  the  consumer  as  much 
as  they  could.  For  most  of  the  country,  the  condi- 
tions of  life  would  actually  be  worse  because — be- 
cause invention  had  increased  the  productivity  of 
farmers  3,000  per  cent. 

Does  this  sound  like  a  dream?  It  is  worse  than 
that.  It  is  a  nightmare.  But  it  is  unfortunately  a 
fact.  It  is  not  spun  out  of  imagination — it  is  con- 
gealed from  experience.  Precisely  this,  on  a  smaller 


FACTS  FOR  FARMERS  175 

scale,  has  happened  and  is  happening  in  the  United 
States.  Improved  agricultural  machinery  has  driven 
from  the  farms  sixty-seven  of  each  ninety-seven  who 
were  engaged  in  agriculture  126  years  ago.  Foolish 
men  in  the  cities  talk  about  the  foolishness  of  men 
in  the  country  who  do  not  know  enough  to  stay  on 
their  farms.  Other  foolish  men  in  the  cities  advocate 
a  "back  to  the  land"  movement  as  the  cure  for  all  of 
our  economic  troubles.  The  fact  is  that  farmers  come 
to  the  cities  because  improved  farm  machinery  is  driv- 
ing them  out  of  the  country.  There  is  only  a  certain 
demand  for  food  and  thirty  can  now  better  satisfy 
it  than  ninety-seven  could  in  1790.  Under  the  present 
system,  every  improvement  in  agricultural  machinery 
and  agricultural  methods  that  shall  be  made  will 
result  in  driving  more  men  from  the  farms  to 
compete  with  the  workers  already  in  the  cities  for 
jobs. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  say  this  is  not  so,  but  it  is 
not  so  easy  to  prove  that  it  is  not  so.  It  is  easy 
enough  to  say  there  is  still  more  work  in  the  country 
than  there  are  men  to  do  it.  Many  farmers  make 
the  mistake  of  trying  to  judge  the  conditions  in  the 
entire  country  by  their  own  experience  or  that  of  a 
neighbor.  Because  old  Bill  Brown  wanted  a  farm 
hand  last  week  and  could  not  find  one — or  found  one 
who  was  so  disgusted  and  disheartened  that  he  had 
turned  to  drink — the  retort  is  made :  "There  is  plenty 
of  work  in  the  country,  but  city  workers  are  too  lazy 
— or  too  drunk — to  come  out  here  and  do  it."  That 
is  not  a  fair  way  to  judge  conditions.  It  is  like  judg- 
ing a  great  picture  by  looking  at  one  little  corner  of 
it.  A  great  picture  of  a  battlefield  might  look  like 
a  cornfield  if  there  were  a  hill  of  corn  in  one  corner 


176         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

of  it  and  a  spectator  were  to  look  only  at  the  hill  of 
corn  and  not  at  the  charging  horses  or  the  guns. 

The  fact  is  that  those  who  are  now  engaged  in 
farming  could  not  if  they  would  give  continuous  em- 
ployment or  even  occasional  employment  to  the  mil- 
lions who  cannot  find  work  in  cities.  It  is  also  absurd 
to  expect  that  a  man  who  has  a  family  settled  in  the 
city  can  leave  them  at  any  moment  to  go  hundreds  or 
thousands  of  miles  into  the  country  to  get  a  few  days' 
work.  If  he  is  out  of  work,  the  chances  also  are  that 
he  is  out  of  money  and  therefore  cannot  pay  his  rail- 
road fare,  and,  if  he  knew  where  the  job  was  (which 
he  doesn't)  and  had  the  money  to  pay  his  railroad  fare 
(which  he  hasn't),  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  he  would 
not  be  given  enough  work  to  buy  a  round-trip  ticket 
and  take  care  of  his  family  while  he  was  away.  And 
no  man,  knowingly,  is  going  to  spend  his  last  cent  for 
a  ticket  from  Chicago  to  a  farm  near  Omaha  to  earn 
so  little  money  that  he  will  be  more  in  debt  when  he 
returns  than  he  was  when  he  left.  Rather  than  do 
this,  men  will  remain  in  the  cities  and  walk  the  streets 
looking  for  work  that  may  return  enough  money  to 
pay  expenses.  Men  do  thus  remain  in  the  cities  and 
walk  the  streets  looking  for  work.  What  wonder  if 
some  of  them  turn  to  drink  ? 

What  is  the  matter  with  the  world?  Nothing  that 
has  not  been  the  matter  with  it  from  the  beginning. 
A  few  men  are  running  the  world  in  their  own  inter- 
est. A  few  men  are  trying  to  roll  in  wealth  at  the 
expense  of  the  rest  of  us.  That  is  nothing  new.  That 
is  what  chattel  slaveholders  tried  to  do — and  did. 
The  method  by  which  a  few  men  live  on  the  others 
changes  with  the  ages.  When  the  people  get  their 
eyes  on  one  method  and  abolish  it,  the  grafters  plan 


FACTS  FOR  FARMERS  177 

another  method.  They  can  no  longer  own  men,  but 
they  can  get  hold  of  what  men  produce.  That  is  all 
they  ever  owned  men  for.  The  wealth  that  men  pro- 
duce is  what  they  are  after.  They  rob  industrial 
workers  in  the  cities  by  one  method  and  farmers 
by  another  method,  but  both  methods  are  a  part  of 
the  same  system. 

We  Socialists  call  the  present  system  of  produc- 
ing and  distributing  wealth  the  capitalist  system  be- 
cause it  is  based  upon  the  private  ownership  by  capital- 
ists of  the  machinery  of  production  and  distribution. 
In  the  cities,  the  capitalists  own  the  great  manufac- 
turing industries  and  will  not  permit  men  to  work 
except  for  wages  that  represent  but  a  part  of  their 
product.  In  the  country,  the  capitalists  do  not  yet 
own  the  farms,  but  they  fix  the  price  of  everything 
the  farmer  buys  and  of  everything  he  sells.  The 
price  of  the  reaper  is  not  what  the  farmer  may  believe 
would  be  a  reasonable  charge,  but  what  the  capitalist 
believes  he  can  get.  The  price  of  wheat  is  not  what 
the  farmer  believes  it  is  worth,  but  what  the  speculator 
believes  he  can  buy  it  for.  Freight  rates  and  elevator 
charges  are  not  what  the  farmer  would  be  willing  to 
pay,  but  what  the  railroad  man  and  the  elevator  man 
say  he  shall  pay. 

Every  capitalist  tells  the  farmer  he  is  the  most  in- 
dependent man  on  earth  and  then  straightway  pro- 
ceeds to  demonstrate  that  he  is  among  the  most 
dependent.  Like  the  industrial  worker  in  the  city,  he 
is  the  victim  of  the  capitalist  class.  He  and  his  wife 
are  free  to  work  until  the  grave  closes  over  them  and 
that  is  about  all.  Their  liberty  is  a  sham,  their  in- 
dependence a  fraud.  They  are  ground  under  an 
oppressive  system  so  unjust  that  even  if  improved 


178         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

machinery  were  to  make  it  possible  to  produce  one 
hundred  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre,  and  everything 
else  in  proportion,  the  problem  of  poverty  would  still 
be  unsolved.  So  long  as  farmers  and  factory  workers 
remain  apart,  the  problem  will  remain  unsolved.  If 
ever  the  victims  are  to  throw  off  their  master,  they 
must  get  together. 

We  Socialists  suggest  that  the  power  be  destroyed 
by  which  a  few  rob  the  many  by  owning  privately 
what  the  many  must  use.  We  suggest  that  the  people, 
through  the  government,  displace  the  capitalist  class 
by  owning  what  the  capitalist  class  now  owns.  We 
do  not  see  how  there  could  ever  be  any  more  robbery 
if  the  people  themselves  could  produce  wealth  without 
the  consent  of  the  capitalist  class  and  consume  it  with- 
out paying  tribute  to  the  capitalist  class.  We  would 
have  the  people,  collectively,  own  the  great  railroads 
and  all  of  the  great  industries.  Wherever  we  might 
find  landlords  robbing  tenant  farmers,  we  would  have 
the  people,  collectively,  own  the  land  and  permit  farm- 
ers to  work  without  paying  tribute  to  a  landlord.  We 
would  apply  the  principle  of  public  ownership  wher- 
ever we  might  find  capitalists  using  private  ownership 
to  perpetrate  private  plunder.  And  we  would  have  a 
government  made  responsive  to  the  public  will  by  the 
initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall. 

Every  Republican,  Democratic  and  Progressive 
politician  wants  to  help  you  without  interfering  with 
the  gentlemen  who  are  using  private  ownership  of 
what  should  be  public  properties  to  feather  their  own 
nests.  They  all  tell  you  we  Socialists  are  wrong. 
You  have  been  voting  as  they  told  you,  probably  since 
you  were  old  enough  to  vote.  //  they  know  how  to 
help  you,  why  have  they  not  done  so? 


DEAR  LAND  AND  POOR  PEOPLE 

T  T  is  the  general  opinion  in  cities  that  farmers  are 
•*•  prosperous.  The  editor  of  Better  Farming,  an 
agricultural  paper  published  in  Chicago,  in  1915  in- 
formed the  public  generally  that  "the  farmer  is  the 
real  capitalist."  Land  had  enormously  increased  in 
price,  he  said,  and  "the  purchasing  power  of  the  farm 
family  has  doubled  in  ten  years." 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is  presented  in  the  follow- 
ing editorial  from  the  New  York  Times: 

"A  report  issued  by  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
will  be  dismal  reading  for  the  people  who  so  confi- 
dently preach  the  doctrine  that  the  welfare  of  a  coun- 
try is  largely  dependent  on  the  division  of  its  land  into 
a  great  number  of  small  farms.  This  is  the  assump- 
tion on  which  is  based  most  of  the  talk  about  the 
wisdom  and  virtue  that  lie  in  rural  as  opposed  to  urban 
life,  and  with  it  goes  the  other  very  common  assump- 
tion that  farms  of  many  acres  are  to  be  reprehended 
and  those  of  few  praised. 

"The  departmental  experts  have  been  collecting 
exact  information  on  this  important  and  interesting 
subject,  and  they  have  figures  to  prove  that  the  finan- 
cial status  of  the  small  farmer  is  usually  unsound  and 
therefore  hopeless.  His  costs  of  cultivation  are  dis- 
proportionate to  his  profits  in  almost  all  cases.  In 

179 


i8o         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

short,  it  is  only  farming  on  a  fairly  extensive  scale 
that  gives  a  reasonable  return  on  investment  and  labor. 
"Anybody  who  thinks  of  heeding  the  advice  so 
often  heard — almost  invariably  from  those  who  do 
not  even  dream  of  taking  it  themselves — should  not 
go  'back  to  the  land'  until  he  is  sure  of  having  land 
enough  to  make  a  living  on.  And  that  takes  capital." 

The  fact  is  that,  agriculturally  speaking,  we  are 
going  the  way  of  the  Roman  empire.  The  price  of 
land  in  the  empire  was  high.  The  land  was  fertile. 
"Farmers"  like  the  Chicago  agriculturalist-editor 
would  have  said — and  doubtless  did  say — that  the  Ro- 
man farmer  was  "the  real  capitalist"  of  his  country. 
Yet  the  Roman  farmers  did  not  think  so.  They  could 
not  discover  that  they  were  making  a  living.  The 
sons  of  farmers  began  to  quit  their  farms  and  seek 
occupations  in  the  city — just  as  our  farmers'  sons  are 
now  quitting  the  country  for  the  cities.  The  empire's 
food  supply  was  threatened.  The  danger  eventually 
became  so  great  that  soldiers  were  stationed  at  the 
gates  of  Rome  with  orders  to  shoot  down  any  and  all 
farmers  that  might  try  to  enter. 

Nor  was  that  all.  Rome's  wars  for  years  were 
conducted  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  capturing  agri- 
cultural supplies  from  other  nations,  and  these  sup- 
plies were  brought  to  Rome  and  distributed  among  the 
very  farmers  that  should  have  produced  them  for  them- 
selves!. Why  they  did  not  produce  them  for  them- 
selves is  an  interesting  story. 

The  same  facts  held  good  with  regard  to  the  valley 
of  the  Euphrates.  In  Bible  times,  this  was  one  of  the 
richest  valleys  in  the  world.  It  supported  a  teeming, 
industrious  population.  Then  the  price  of  land  be- 


DEAR  LAND  AND  POOR  PEOPLE  181 

came  high.  The  valley  of  the  Euphrates  is  to-day 
a  bleak  waste,  giving  over  to  thin,  scattered  patches  of 
grass.  The  land  is  exhausted  because  it  held  true 
there  as  everywhere,  that  when  others  exploit  the 
farmer,  he  exploits  his  farm.  Unable  to  fertilize  it, 
he  takes  out  without  putting  back  until  there  is  no 
more  to  take  out. 

In  the  census  of  1910,  Iowa  was  the  only  state  in  the 
Union  that  showed  a  loss  of  population  as  compared 
with  the  preceding  census.  According  to  city  editors 
of  farm  papers,  it  should  have  shown  a  great  gain. 
Superficially,  Iowa  farmers  are  smothered  with  pros- 
perity. Land  is  $150  an  acre,  and  much  of  it  is  held 
at  $200.  Fifty  years  ago,  some  of  the  same  land 
sold  for  $10  an  acre. 

Why  does  dear  land  hurt  farming?  There  are  sev- 
eral reasons.  Consider  the  lowan  of  half  a  century 
ago  who  had  160  acres  of  land  that  cost  him  $10  an 
acre.  The  price  of  his  farm  was  $1,600.  If,  instead 
of  buying  a  farm,  he  had  put  his  $1,600  out  at  interest 
at  6  per  cent,  he  would  have  had  an  annual  income 
of  but  $96.  He  could  not  have  lived  on  that.  There- 
fore, he  was  compelled  to  invest  it  in  something  upon 
which  he  could  expend  enough  labor  to  make  a  living. 

At  $150  an  acre,  the  same  farm  would  now  be  worth 
$24,000.  The  annual  interest  on  $24,000  at  6  per 
cent  is  $1,440.  Considerable  labor  is  required  to  ob- 
tain so  much  money,  each  year,  from  the  soil.  The 
temptation  is  to  rent  the  farm  and  get  the  $1,440  with- 
out earning  it.  That  is  the  beginning  of  landlordism 
and  tenantry.  The  high  price  of  land,  which  makes  it 
impossible  for  the  poor  to  buy  farms,  provides  the 
tenants.  The  owner  moves  into  the  village  and  lives 
on  his  income. 


182         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

When  the  owner  lived  upon  and  worked  his  own 
farm  it  was  required  to  support  only  himself  and  his 
family.  As  soon  as  he  rents  it,  it  is  required  to  sup- 
port two  families.  Where  the  owner  found  it  com- 
paratively easy  to  make  a  living,  the  tenant  finds  it 
almost  impossible  to  do  so.  Every  year,  the  tenant 
must  raise  $1,440  worth  of  crops  that  he  does  not  get. 
Exploited  himself,  he  exploits  his  land.  Under  con- 
tinuous exploitation,  the  fertility  of  the  soil  decreases. 
Crops  become  poorer.  That  is  why  the  farmers  of  the 
Roman  empire  could  not  raise  enough  to  support  them- 
selves. The  price  of  land  was  too  high.  Owners  re- 
tired to  live  in  idleness,  while  tenants  came  to  work 
in  misery. 

High  land  prices  in  a  community  are  like  high  blood 
pressures  in  human  beings — they  are  danger  signals. 
When  a  human  being's  blood  pressure  becomes  high, 
he  is  in  danger  of  apoplexy  and  death.  When  a 
nation's  land  values  become  high,  the  community  is 
in  danger.  Poor  men,  unable  to  buy  land,  are  com- 
pelled to  rent.  Owners,  seeing  an  opportunity  to  ob- 
tain part  of  the  product  of  a  farm  without  earning 
any  of  it,  are  eager  to  rent.  Land  soon  becomes  so 
depleted  that  a  given  amount  of  it  can  no  longer  sup- 
port so  many  persons,  and  population  decreases.  The 
farming  land  that  to-day  sells  for  $200  an  acre  is 
really  not  as  good  land  as  it  was  when  it  was  sold  for 
$10  an  acre.  Based  on  its  productive  capacity,  it 
should  sell  for  less  than  it  did  when  it  was  new  and 
strong.  Its  present  price  is  purely  artificial.  It  rep- 
resents only  the  pressure  of  population  upon  agricul- 
tural resources.  If  the  pressure  were  twice  as  much, 
land  prices  might  be  twice  as  high  and  the  difficulty 
of  making  a  living  on  a  farm  would  be  much  greater. 


DEAR  LAND  AND  POOR  PEOPLE  183 

It  is  well  that  the  agricultural  department  has  told 
the  truth  about  farming.  Farmers'  sons,  for  twenty- 
five  years,  have  not  been  fleeing  from  the  farms  for 
nothing.  They  are  not  fooled  by  city  talk  about  the 
"prosperity  of  the  farmer."  They  know  the  facts. 
They  know  the  farmers  are  not  prosperous.  And, 
now  we  have  the  word  of  our  national  government  for 
it  that  "small  farms  do  not  pay;"  that  only  the  rich 
can  do  well  at  farming. 

Are  we  going  to  do  anything  about  these  facts? 
What  are  we  going  to  do?  Can  we  conceive  of  a 
prosperous,  happy  nation  that,  agriculturally,  is  not 
made  up  of  small  farms?  Shall  the  poor  man  have  no 
chance  anywhere  in  America?  Do  we  want  America 
to  become  a  nation  of  large  farms,  operated  by  great 
capitalists,  employing  hired  labor  at  the  lowest  price 
they  can  obtain  it  in  a  labor  market  that  is  always 
glutted?  Do  we  want  this  to  become  a  nation  of 
great  landlords  and  little  tenants?  We  wonder  that 
the  English,  in  a  little  island  like  England,  permit  a 
few  dukes  to  own  most  of  the  land.  Are  we  to  sup- 
pose that  the  English  forced  this  land  upon  the  dukes 
— or  is  it  possible  that  conditions  in  England  gradu- 
ally wrested  the  soil  away  from  the  peasantry  and 
handed  it  over  to  a  handful  of  idle  owners?  What 
conditions  would  be  more  likely  to  wrest  soil  from 
a  peasantry  than  high  land  prices? 

This  is  a  burning  question  to-day.  It  is  not  a 
question  of  when,  if  ever,  America  will  be  owned  by 
seven  grand  dukes.  What  we  are  confronted  with 
to-day  is  the  scandalous  fact  that  in  a  rich  agricultural 
country,  and  with  farm  products  selling  at  exorbitant 
prices  in  the  cities,  farming  on  a  moderate  scale  can- 
not be  made  to  pay.  And  that  is  a  fact  that  should 


184         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

be  of  great  interest  at  least  to  some  millions  of  small 
farmers. 

It  is  not  a  question  of  middlemen.  Cut  out  the 
commission  men  and  the  result  would  be  the  same. 
If  farmers  were  to  receive  for  their  produce  the  same 
price  that  city  people  now  pay  for  it  the  problem  would 
remain  unsolved.  Land  prices  would  increase  some 
more.  Tenants  would  be  required  to  pay  more  for 
the  use  of  land.  Nothing  would  be  settled.  Idlers 
would  still  be  drawing  unearned  incomes  from  farms, 
either  as  landlords  or  as  the  holders  of  mortgages, 
and  hungry  tenants,  exploiting  the  land,  would  be  de- 
creasing its  fertility. 

The  presumption  is  that  the  average  farmer  would 
do  the  wise  thing  if  he  knew  what  the  wise  thing  is. 
He  is  not  wedded  to  his  hardships.  He  knows  he 
is  not  having  much  of  a  life.  But  he  is  pretty  busy 
with  his  farming.  When  he  gets  through  at  night  he 
is  tired.  He  is  not  in  a  frame  of  mind  to  blaze  out 
new  paths.  He  is  hardly  in  a  frame  of  mind  to  read 
of  new  paths  that  others  have  blazed  out.  Like  every- 
body else,  he  is  looking  for  the  "easiest  way."  What 
is  the  easiest  way?  Why,  increase  or  decrease  the 
tariff  on  wool,  as  the  case  may  be,  or  determine  to 
vote  out  at  the  next  opportunity,  the  set  of  officials 
that,  at  the  last  opportunity,  he  voted  in. 

The  farmers  of  this  country,  for  fifty  years,  have 
been  proceeding  upon  these  lines  and  accomplished 
nothing.  Conditions  to-day  are,  broadly  speaking, 
worse  than  they  ever  were  before.  Farmers,  this  year, 
may  be  getting  a  little  more  for  their  wheat,  because 
of  the  European  War,  but  that  is  of  no  lasting  sig- 
nificance. The  great  stubborn  fact  remains  that  farm- 
ing on  a  moderate  scale  in  this  country  does  not  pay. 


DEAR  LAND  AND  POOR  PEOPLE  185 

The  small  farmers  have  always  known  it  and  now  the 
government  admits  it.  Conditions  are  worse  than  they 
ever  were  before  because  the  price  of  land  is  higher 
than  it  ever  was  before,  the  difficulty  of  buying  land 
is  therefore  greater  than  it  ever  was  before,  and  the 
soil,  which  is  the  basis  of  our  agricultural  resources, 
is  poorer  than  it  ever  was  before.  It  is  becoming 
farmed  out.  Much  land  in  the  older,  eastern  states,  is 
no  longer  worth  tilling,  and  the  best  land  is  not  what 
it  was  when  the  plow  first  turned  it. 


CHAPTER  XV 

OPPORTUNITY 

VT'EARS  ago,  Emerson  said:  "America  is  only  an- 
_•*•  other  name  for  opportunity."  He  might  have 
said  the  same  of  a  gambling  house.  I  once  saw  a 
Wyoming  sheepherder  win  $2,200  at  faro  bank  in 
half  an  hour.  An  American  occasionally  gets  some- 
thing more  for  a  life  of  hard  labor  than  a  bare  living. 
A  gambler  occasionally  wins  at  faro.  The  gambling 
house  is  never  praised.  Why  not  look  America 
squarely  in  the  face,  too?  Why  not  analyze  life  as  it 
is  here  and  see  exactly  what  it  means? 

The  head  of  the  telephone  trust,  Mr.  Theodore  N. 
Vail,  has  some  ideas  as  to  what  life  means  in  America. 
He  began  as  a  country  doctor  but  soon  abandoned 
medicine.  Probably  he  rattled  about  as  most  young 
men  do  when  they  are  blindly  struggling  for  a  place 
in  the  world.  Vail  finally  became  a  street  railway 
operator  in  Brazil,  made  some  money,  returned  to 
America,  entered  the  telephone  business,  became  the 
president  of  the  Bell  company  and  a  multimillionaire. 
The  day  he  was  70  years  old  he  compared  the  op- 
portunities of  the  past  with  those  of  the  present  and 
added : 

"America  never  before  contained  so  many  oppor- 
tunities. The  young  man  who  is  willing  to  work  and 
has  ability  and  a  good  education  is  the  one  who  is 
going  ahead." 

1 86 


OPPORTUNITY  187 

Let  us  consider  Mr.  Vail's  first  requirement  for 
success,  which  is  willingness  to  work.  Practically  the 
whole  nation  can  meet  that  test.  No  slurs  can  be  cast 
at  men  who  work  from  ten  to  twelve  hours  a  day  at 
hard,  monotonous  work,  and  there  are  millions  who 
do  so.  There  are  always  more  men  who  are  not  only 
willing  but  eager  to  work  than  there  are  jobs.  From 
this  point  of  view,  we  are  all  prepared  to  grasp  the 
great  opportunities  that  Mr.  Vail  sees  before  us. 

How  about  the  second  test — ability?  We  shall  first 
have  to  guess  what  Mr.  Vail  meant  by  ability.  First, 
of  course,  he  meant  men  whose  minds  have  unfolded 
to  a  considerable  degree  to  the  world  about  them. 
A  Russian  peasant's  mind  is  closed  like  a  bud  that  the 
spring  rains  have  not  yet  opened.  Only  thinking  can 
unfold  a  mind.  Only  experience  with  the  world  about 
one  can  make  one  think.  Mr.  Vail  can  think  because 
he  has  brushed  up  against  life  in  many  phases.  He 
has  had  nearly  every  advantage  that  a  human  being 
can  have.  But  what  if  he  had  remained  a  country 
doctor?  What  if  circumstances  had  held  him  to  a 
place  in  a  factory? 

Most  Americans  are  and  always  will  be  held  to 
humble  tasks — to  plowing  and  sowing  and  running 
street  cars  and  laying  asphalt  pavement  and  running 
machines  that  knit  socks  and  running  other  machines 
that  make  breakfast  food.  This  must  always  be  so 
because  we  cannot  live  without  socks  and  food  and 
we  cannot  get  to  our  work  without  street  cars.  A 
million  $6-a-week  girls  can  be  telephone  operators, 
but  there  can  never  be  but  one  head  of  the  telephone 
trust,  because  but  one  is  needed — and  at  present  that  is 
Mr.  Vail. 

So  most  of  us  cannot  pass — and  can  never  pass — 


188        INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

Mr.  Vail's  second  requirement,  for  the  reason  that  we 
lack  "ability"  in  the  sense  in  which  he  uses  the  word. 
Our  minds  are  more  or  less  closed  because  too  close 
confinement  to  dreary  jobs  has  kept  our  thoughts  on 
little  things  and  away  from  big  things. 

Mr.  Vail's  third  and  last  requirement  is  a  "good 
education."  What  chance  have  we?  Ninety-five  per 
cent  of  the  children  who  enter  the  primary  grades 
never  get  so  far  as  the  high  school.  The  unsanitary 
housing  conditions  that  are  enforced  upon  the  poor 
tell  part  of  the  reason  why.  The  abnormal  infant 
mortality  that  is  found  among  the  poor  takes  many  a 
little  student  from  his  desk.  Hard  times  take  others. 
The  parents  need  the  little  sums  that  the  children 
could  earn.  The  half-grown  girl  goes  to  a  department 
store  and  the  boy  quits  school  to  go  into  a  factory. 
By  the  time  high  school  is  reached,  only  five  of  each 
hundred  who  entered  school  are  left.  Most  of  the 
five  finish  high  school  and  then  go  to  work.  The 
odd  child — quite  frequently  the  rich  man's  child — goes 
to  college  or  a  technical  school  and  gets  what  Mr.  Vail 
calls  a  "good  education." 

I  may  not  have  stated  this  fairly,  though  I  have 
tried  to.  After  reading  it  over,  I  can  see  no  mistake. 
If  there  be  no  mistake,  and  Mr.  Vail  has  made  no 
mistake  in  stating  the  qualifications  that  are  necessary 
to  take  advantage  of  the  great  opportunities  that 
America  presents,  I  must  say  that  I  cannot  see  where 
the  poor  boy  or  girl  has  much  show.  But  maybe 
I  am  wrong.  Let  us  go  a  little  further. 

Mr.  Vail  speaks  of  the  great  opportunities  that 
America  offers  to  young  men  who  are  willing  to  work 
and  who  have  both  ability  and  a  good  education.  He 
naturally  expects  that  such  men  will  become  managers, 


OPPORTUNITY  189 

directors  and  presidents  of  great  corporations.  Mr. 
Vail  would  hardly  call  the  running  of  a  corner  grocery 
a  great  opportunity.  He  would  have  hardly  talked 
so  much  about  opportunity  on  his  seventieth  birthday 
if  he  had  meant  that  running  a  street  car,  or  driving 
a  hack,  or  breaking  on  a  freight  train,  or  shoveling 
coal  under  a  boiler  was  a  great  opportunity.  Yet  it 
is  these  humble  tasks,  and  others  like  them,  that  con- 
stitute the  work  of  America  and  the  work  of  the 
world.  No  great  ability  is  required  to  shovel  coal. 
No  technical  ability  is  required  to  drive  a  delivery 
wagon.  A  man  who  had  never  been  to  college  might 
be  a  good  locomotive  engineer.  Willingness  to  work 
is  the  only  requirement  mentioned  by  Mr.  Vail  that 
is  necessary  to  the  doing  of  most  of  the  jobs  that  are 
to  be  done.  Most  work  is  done  with  machinery.  The 
inventor  puts  in  the  brains.  The  worker  puts  in  the 
muscle  and  a  little  technical  skill  that  he  has  picked 
up  around  the  shop.  A  college  man — a  man  "of 
good  education" — would  not,  if  he  could  help  it,  take 
such  a  job,  and  if  he  could  not  help  it,  his  education 
would  do  him  no  good. 

The  trouble  with  Mr.  Vail's  world  is  that  it  is  only 
for  a  few.  He  has  neglected  to  consider  the  human 
race.  If  all  railway  employees,  provided  they  were 
willing  to  work,  were  well  educated  and  able,  could 
be  railway  presidents,  Mr.  Vail's  world  would  be  a 
fine  place  in  which  to  live.  But  this  is  not  such  a 
world  and  never  can  be.  It  is  and  must  be  a  world 
in  which  most  men  and  women  must  earn  their  living 
by  doing  humble  tasks.  There  is  no  way  of  growing 
potatoes  except  by  planting  them,  and  the  only  way 
to  produce  woolen  clothes  is  to  raise  sheep. 

The  only  kind  of  opportunity  that  is  worth  talking 


190         INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA 

about  is  opportunity  for  all.  All  men  are  not  fitted 
to  receive  "good"  educations.  But  all  men  are  fitted 
to  receive  all  they  produce,  and  each  is  fitted,  in  his 
own  way,  to  enjoy  the  world  in  which  he  lives.  Most 
of  us  know  next  to  nothing  of  the  world  in  which  we 
live.  We  know  all  about  the  places  in  which  we  work. 
We  could  almost  go  around  in  the  dark  without  bark- 
ing a  shin  or  making  a  misstep.  But  we  know  very 
little  about  the  world.  A  single  tree  contains  more 
beauty  than  the  average  mind  has  ever  absorbed.  The 
mind  is  not  to  blame.  It  is  the  shop,  the  factory  and 
the  everlasting  grind  of  monotonous  toil.  We  could 
all  see  if  we  had  the  time.  We  have  not  the  time. 

Opportunity  in  America  will  never  exist  in  any  true 
sense  until  every  person  who  comes  here,  either  by 
birth  or  by  steamship,  is  enabled  to  get  some  real 
knowledge  of  the  world  about  him.  This  can  come 
only  when  men  have  leisure  and  contented  minds. 
Leisure  and  contented  minds  can  come  only  when  we 
all  go  about  it,  collectively,  to  produce,  with  the  least 
effort  and  in  the  least  time,  what  we  need. 

If  we  want  this  to  be  a  world  of  happiness  it  must 
be  a  world  of  square-dealing.  Nobody  need  worry 
himself  about  the  young  man,  willing  to  work,  who 
has  both  ability  and  a  good  education.  He  will  get 
along.  Nor  should  we  exult  over  any  success  that 
may  come  to  him.  His  success  is  of  absolutely  no 
significance  so  long  as  most  other  people  can,  in  the 
very  nature  of  things,  have  no  success.  The  only 
success  that  is  worth  talking  about  is  the  success  that 
is  within  the  reach  of  every  human  being.  So  long 
as  America  has  opportunities  only  for  a  few  it  is  not 
the  land  of  opportunity;  it  is  simply  a  sweating-out 
place  where  human  beings  are  trying  to  learn  to  live. 


Books  by  Allan  L.  Benson 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  SOCIALISM:  a  plain  statement  of  Socialism 
that  Eugene  V.  Debs  says  is  "the  very  clearest  and  cleverest  of 
all."  1 88  pp.;  cloth,  $1.00;  paper,  25  cents.  Ninth  edition. 
Published  by  B.  W.  Huebsch,  New  York. 

OUR  DISHONEST  CONSTITUTION:  a  survey  of  the  men  who 

made  our  organic  law  and  an  explanation  of  why  they  made  it 
as  it  is.  "Mr.  Benson,"  says  the  Chicago  News,  "states  the  facts 
so  vividly  and  with  so  much  sarcastically  grim  humor,  that  his 
book  is  extremely  readable."  1 82  pp. ;  cloth,  $i  .00 ;  paper,  25  cents. 
Published  by  B.  W.  Huebsch,  New  York. 

THE  USURPED  POWER  OF  THE  COURTS:  an  analysis  of  the 
steps  by  which  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  claimed  the 
power  to  declare  acts  of  Congress  unconstitutional,  though  no 
other  court  on  earth  claims  such  power,  the  constitution  gives 
our  Supreme  Court  no  such  power,  and  the  court,  for  several 
years,  did  not  claim  to  have  such  power.  This  pamphlet  has 
had  a  circulation  of  more  than  200,000  copies  and  in  1915  was 
considered  at  some  length  in  a  report  made  by  the  Bar  Associa- 
tion of  the  City  of  New  York  to  the  convention  assembled  to 
draft  a  new  constitution  for  the  State  of  New  York.  64  pp.; 
paper,  5  cents.  Published  by  National  Socialist  Party,  Chicago. 

A  WAY  TO  PREVENT  WAR:  both  a  plea  and  a  plan  for  the  dem- 
ocratization of  diplomacy  and  the  war  making  power.  A  book 
that  has  been  favorably  reviewed  by  the  labor  press  of  the  world. 
Two  resolutions  have  been  introduced  in  Congress  since  this  book 
was  published  in  May,  1915,  proposing  amendments  to  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  in  harmony  with  one  or  more  of 
its  fundamental  provisions.  180  pp.;  cloth,  50  cents;  paper,  25 
cents.  Published  by  the  Appeal  to  Reason,  Girard,  Kan. 

INVITING  WAR  TO  AMERICA:  This  is  the  complete  Baedeker  to 
the  land  of  the  three  P's:  Patriotism,  Preparedness  and  Profit.  It 
will  confirm  your  suspicion  that  the  path  of  glory  leads  to  the 
corner  of  Broad  and  Wall  streets.  It  is  convincing  proof  that  the 
invitation  to  bloodshed  and  bankruptcy  is  not  in  the  interest  of 
national  defence  but  of  profits  for  economic  parasites.  Clothf 
$i  .00.  Published  by  B.  W.  Huebsch,  New  York. 


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